AN    ENGLISH    ANTHOLOGY 
PART  II.    NOTES  AND   INDICES 


SIR    HENRY    NEWBOLT'S 
AN    ENGLISH    ANTHOLOGY 

SHOWING  THE  MAIN  STREAM  OF  ENGLISH 

LITERATURE  FROM  THE  FOURTEENTH  TO 

THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY. 

Second  Impression. 

"  It  is  indeed  no  excessive  claim  that  '  shining  pieces  have  gone 
by  hundreds  into  this  mosaic.'  It  is  an  inexhaustible  delight  to 
turn  these  leaves  at  random.  ...  In  these  thousand  pages  there 
is  store  for  the  leisure  hours  of  a  lifetime." — The  Morning  Post. 

IN  this  book  Sir  Henry  Newbolt  gives  us  a  selec- 
tion of  English  Prose  and  Verse  from  the  fourteenth  to 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  book  has  been  compiled 
for  the  use  of  teachers  and  students  of  English:  its 
object  is  to  show  the  progress  of  the  English  language 
and  literature  as  the  gradual  gathering  of  a  great  con- 
course of  characters  and  influences.  The  total  effect  of 
this  concourse  at  any  moment  is  made  clear  by  the 
arrangement.  The  authors  included  are  placed,  not  by 
order  of  birth,  but  by  the  dates  at  which  their  first  or 
most  decisive  work  appeared.  By  this  arrangement  the 
reader  will  gain  an  idea  of  the  effective  content  of  the 
literary  mind  at  any  given  date,  and  will  be  able  to 
make  his  own  observation  of  the  influence  of  great 
writers  or  great  events  upon  the  generations  which 
followed  them. 


PART  II.    NOTES  AND   INDICES 
BY  SIR  HENRY  NEWBOLT 

THIS  book  is  issued  as  a  companion  to  the  above 
volume.  It  contains  critical  and  appreciative  comments 
on  the  authors  and  their  works,  and  should  be  found 
especially  valuable  for  students. 


AN  ENGLISH  ANTHOLOGY 
OF  PROSE  AND  POETRY 

(i4TH  CENTURY- 1 9TH  CENTURY) 
PART  II.     NOTES  AND  INDICES 


COMPILED  BY 

HENRY    NEWBOLT 


1922 

LONDON  <$•  TORONTO 

J.  M.  DENT  y  SONS  LTD. 

NEW  YORK:    E.  P.  DUTTON  6-  CO. 


GREAT  fifiJTM 


All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED   IN  GREAT   BRITAIN 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  purpose  of  this  English  Anthology  is  "  to  show  the 
progress  of  the  English  language  and  literature  as  the  gradual 
gathering  of  many  tributaries  into  one  stream,  or  of  many 
characters  and  influences  into  one  great  national  concourse." 
It  places  every  writer  therefore,  not  by  the  date  of  his  birth — 
the  moment  of  birth  is  not  the  moment  of  his  effective  entry 
into  the  world  of  thought — but  by  the  date  at  which  he  may  be 
judged  to  have  arrived  in  the  concourse  as  a  conspicuous  or 
influential  member  of  it.  The  reader  is  invited  to  open  the  book 
wherever  he  will  and  imagine  himself  to  be  the  contemporary 
of  the  author  there  exemplified :  he  will  be  able  to  get  some  idea 
from  the  preceding  pages  of  what  might  then  have  formed  the 
literary  content  of  his  mind,  and  in  the  succeeding  pages  he  can 
look  forward  to  that  which  was  still  in  the  future.  This  is  a  con- 
venient way  of  applying  the  Historic  Method :  but  in  suggesting 
it  I  am  anxious  not  to  give  a  mistaken  view  of  the  relation  of 
History  and  Literature. 

A  work  of  art — a  piece  of  literature — is  not  the  subject  of 
History  in  any  but  a  very  Limited  way:  it  is  not  the  product  of 
an  Organism  or  a  Process,  in  the  biological  sense,  but  the  unique, 
timeless  expression  of  a  spirit  in  a  world  of  spirits.  This  time- 
lessness  of  Art  cannot  be  too  clearly  stated  or  too  constantly 
remembered.  The  worlds  of  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Keats, 
Byron,  Browning — and  even  of  much  lesser  and  less  fertile 
poets  —  are  all  unique,  separate,  self-existent  worlds,  each 
created  for  the  first  time  and  by  the  act  of  a  single  person.  But 
they  are  created  by  a  transmuting  power,  out  of  experiences 
afforded  by  the  world  of  every  day.  The  components  of  these 
experiences  have  a  history,  which  may  be  known  and  stated, 
in  terms  of  Time  or  succession,  and  even  of  Causation. 

v 


2034675 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

The  Time  is  obvious,  but  less  important  than  the  Causation. 
Man  being  what  he  is,  a  spirit  and  member  of  a  society  of  spirits, 
can  only  express  himself  as  such;  that  is,  in  forms  addressed 
to  or  intelligible  by  others  of  his  kind.  Literary  art,  therefore, 
is  the  intercourse  of  choicer  spirits,  in  which  they  receive  and 
give  experiences:  and  it  is  often  intercourse  which  extends 
beyond  the  bounds  of  an  age  or  a  national  society.  The  ex- 
perience of  one  (or  of  many)  becomes  part  of  the  experience  of 
another  (or  others),  and  through  them  of  yet  others.  The 
gradual  onward  flow  of  these  transmitted  experiences  is  like  a 
broadening  stream:  it  flows  through  the  whole  landscape,  and 
no  one,  however  original,  can  be  wholly  unaffected  by  it. 

But  originality  does  not  depend  on  freedom  from  influences. 
(It  could  not,  for  everyone  has  an  environment,  and  one  resulting 
from  the  past.)  These  influences,  this  tradition  of  methods  and 
insight,  this  store  of  experiences,  is  a  strength,  not  a  weakness, 
for  those  who  can  use  it  with  a  degree  of  mastery.  There  will 
always  be,  as  Mr.  Abercrombie  says,  "  the  amateur  artist  who 
worries  himself  with  anxiety  to  create  beauty  " — that  is,  the  man 
who,  being  fond  of  figs,  wishes  to  be  a  fig  tree  as  well  as  a 
consumer — but  there  will  also  be  the  genuine  artist  whose 
impulse  and  vision  are  his  own,  though  he  receives  from  others 
the  suggestion  of  a  subject,  a  vocabulary,  a  technique,  or  even 
the  first  guidance  towards  a  new  point  of  view.  His  feeling, 
too,  will  inevitably  be  coloured  by  the  social  and  political  life 
of  his  country  and  by  the  public  or  semi-public  opinion  of 
his  generation:  and  it  is  on  this  account  that  private  letters, 
diaries,  and  other  non-literary  documents  have  been  included 
in  our  collection. 

We  may  speak  then  of  the  history  of  literature  if  we  please: 
but  let  us  at  the  same  time  remember  what  Literature  really  is: 
let  us  look  at  the  work  of  the  great  initiators  and  note  that  the 
greater  they  are  the  more  difficult  or  the  less  relevant  it  is  to 
define  them  in  such  terms.  When  we  make  our  survey  of 
literature  we  are  not  inspecting  a  pedigree  herd  or  a  school  of 
verbal  dexterity:  what  we  see  is  the  spectacle  of  the  timeless, 
immaterial  human  spirit  expressing  itself  under  the  limitations 
of  Time  and  bodily  existence.  We  too  are  under  those  limitations, 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

and  we  find  a  reasonable  pleasure  in  comparing  and  placing  the 
work  of  individual  artists :  but  we  shall  gain  a  greater  experience 
of  sympathy,  insight  and  wonder  in  proportion  as  we  realise 
that  the  artist,  though  always  a  person,  is  not  in  his  essential 
reality  a  temporal,  a  national  or  an  individual  being. 

One  more  word  of  warning  is  necessary.  There  are  several 
periods  in  which  the  tributaries  of  our  great  stream  flow  in  in 
very  rapid  succession.  When  a  number  of  authors  are  "  arriving  " 
close  together  dates  should  be  exact:  and  this  is  sometimes  very 
difficult  to  ensure.  I  have  gone  over  the  whole  list  with  the  aid 
of  The  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  the  huge  Record  of 
English  Literature  of  Dr.  Garnett  and  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse, 
Professor  Saintsbury's  History  of  English  Literature  and  Pro- 
fessor Elton's  Survey  of  English  Literature.  All  these  are  admirable 
books,  and  their  differences  add  to  the  reader's  pleasure — except 
when  they  disagree  as  to  dates.  They  frequently  vary  by  one 
year,  not  infrequently  by  three;  and  not  possessing  first  editions 
of  the  whole  company  of  English  writers  myself,  I  have  been 
forced  at  times  to  find  a  verdict  on  the  evidence  instead  of 
recording  a  scientific  fact.  In  three  cases  (out  of  230)  I  have 
had  to  confess  mistakes,  and  these  shall  some  day  be  remedied. 
But  the  arrangement,  in  spite  of  any  small  inaccuracies,  will  be 
found  to  justify  itself.  It  will  be  noted,  on  looking  down  the 
column  of  "  arrival  dates,"  that  there  are  some  remarkable  years 
or  short  periods — e.g.  the  period  1590-94,  1610-13,  1710-13, 
1817-19,  or  1832-33 — when  a  kind  of  spate  came  down  the 
stream.  To  a  contemporary,  or  one  living  a  few  years  later,  or 
to  us  now,  such  periods  must  have  a  wonderful  appearance — 
they  were  great  times  to  be  alive  in.  But  write  down  these  same 
authors  or  tributaries  in  the  order  of  their  birth-dates  and  the 
spate  disappears :  while  on  the  other  hand,  when  births  coincide 
(e.g.  in  1829),  neither  in  fact  nor  in  contemporary  effect  is  there 
anything  to  admire  at  all.  Lastly  the  method  over-rides  the 
"  grouping  "  of  writers  by  the  specific  form  of  their  writings : 
and  that  alone  is  worth  doing:  for  there  is  no  doubt  that  this 
device  has  hitherto  saved  the  historian's  time  and  trouble  rather 
than  the  reader's. 


NOTE 

The  year  which  precedes  each  author's  name  is  that  assigned  as  the 
date  of  his  "  arrival " — that  is,  of  the  decisive  appearance  of  his  fame 
or  influence  in  the  world  of  letters.  The  facts  by  which  the  date  is  fixed 
are  given  in  the  note  which  follows;  but  strict  uniformity  cannot  be 
secured.  The  sky  may  be  clear  for  one  star;  another  may  rise  in 
mist  and  only  be  visible  some  time  afterwards,  but  its  influence  may 
be  as  great  as  that  of  North  upon  Shakespeare  or  Phineas  Fletcher 
upon  Milton. 


AN    ENGLISH   ANTHOLOGY 
OF   PROSE  AND   POETRY 

1 3th  Century,    Poetry  before  Chaucer 

PAGE 

Cuckoo  Song  (c.  122,6,  Anon.)  i 

Alison  (c.  1300,  Anon.)    .....  i 

This  World's  Joy  (c.  1300,  Anon.)     ...  3 

Praise  of  Women  (R.  Mannyng  of  Brunne)          .  4 

The  long  and  illustrious  line  of  the  English  poets  may  truly 
be  said  to  have  been  founded  by  Chaucer,  as  a  family  is  said 
to  be  founded  by  that  ancestor  who  first  established  it  in  a 
fixed  place  and  influence.  But  like  every  such  founder,  Chaucer 
too  had  origins,  and  these  four  pieces  are  inserted  here  to  give 
some  indication  of  their  nature.  His  narrative  poetry  owed  little 
to  any  English  progenitor,  but  it  is  clear  that  he  was  not  the 
first,  by  a  good  century,  to  write  English  lyrics,  nor  is  it  to 
him  that  we  owe  the  adaptation  to  our  own  speech  of  the  lyric 
models  of  the  troubadours  and  trouveres  of  France. 

The  CUCKOO  SONG,  which  is  generally  ascribed  to  the  middle 
of  the  thirteenth  century  but  may  be  somewhat  earlier,  is  the 
first  English  song  of  which  we  possess  the  original  music  (British 
Museum — for  two,  three,  or  four  voices  and  chorus),  and  as 
verse  "  the  first  perfectly  delightful  thing  in  English  poetry  " 
(Saintsbury). 

ALISON  is  the  best  piece  in  a  MS.  collection  also  in  the  British 
Museum  (Harleian  MSS.  2253).  It  is  specially  interesting  for 
its  evident  descent  from  the  old  English  alliterative  mode  as 
well  as  from  the  Anglo-Norman  rhymed  lyric. 

The  winter  song  THIS  WORLD'S  JOY,  ascribed,  like  Alison,  to 
the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century,  is  even  more  modern  in  feeling 
and  in  cadence.  Any  reader  who  has  succeeded  in  mastering 
the  language  and  disregarding  the  obsolete  spelling  will  appreciate 
the  perfection  of  the  workmanship.  The  final  line  anticipates 
the  last-line  effect  of  the  Spenserian  stanza. 

A  X 


2  WILLIAM  LANGLAND  [1362 

ROBERT  MANNYNG  was  a  Gilbertine  canon,  born  at  Brunne 
(Bourn)  in  Lincolnshire.  His  date  is  not  certainly  known,  but 
he  was  writing  in  1320  and  lived  into  the  reign  of  Edward  III. 
His  work  is  remarkable  for  the  introduction  not  only  of  French 
words,  but  of  French  terminations  and  constructions. 


1362*   William  Langland 

PAGE 

Piers  Plowman  (1362) 4 

LANGLAND  is  placed  here  not  as  a  progenitor  of  Chaucer  but 
as  an  elder  contemporary — an  elder  brother,  it  might  be  said,  of 
equal  rank,  but  of  less  fruitful  genius.  It  was  not  from  him  that 
the  English  poets  were  to  derive:  his  great  poem  (1362)  was 
"  the  consummation  of  that  strictly  national  style  of  poetry  .  .  . 
which,  having  been  carried  by  him  to  the  utmost  height  of  which 
it  was  capable,  is  about  to  yield  to  a  more  perfect  form  of  art, 
as  Ennius  and  Lucilius  of  old  gave  place  to  Virgil  and  Horace  " 
(R.  Garnett). 

1369*    Geoffrey  Chaucer  (13401-1400)  (I.) 

His  Daydream  of  a  Hunting  (The  Book  of  the 

Duchesse)         ......        6 

Troilus  and  Criseyde  (Books  I.,  II.  and  V.)        .        9 

THE  two  extracts  here  given  represent  CHAUCER'S  work  in 
what  are  known  as  his  French  and  Italian  periods.  Examples 
of  his  English  period  follow  under  the  date  1388. 

THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DUCHESSE  is  probably  the  earliest  of  Chaucer's 
extant  poems:  it  is  dated  by  the  death  of  Blanche,  Duchess  of 
Lancaster,  who  died  in  September  1369,  and  upon  whom  the 
elegy  is  written;  under  the  influence  of  the  French  poets. 

TROILUS  AND  CRISEYDE  appears  (from  the  style  and  the  use 
of  the  rhyme  royal)  to  have  been  written  between  1379  and 
1382:  certainly  after  one  or  both  of  his  journeys  to  Italy 
(1373  and  1378).  It  owes  much  to  Boccaccio's  Filostrato,  and 
was  in  turn  the  source  of  Henryson's  Testament  of  Cressid, 
and  of  Shakespeare's  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  Dryden's 
adaptation  of  the  same. 


1378-84]  THE   WYCLIF  BIBLE  3 

1372-7*    John  Wyclif  (1320^-1384) 

PAGE 

On   Monastic   Vows   (An   Apology  for  Lollard 

Doctrines)         ......       16 

It  is  not  certain  that  the  APOLOGY  FOR  LOLLARD  DOCTRINES 
is  by  Wyclif.  It  is,  however,  included  in  a  contemporary  MS. 
volume  which  contains  many  of  the  treatises  commonly  attri- 
buted to  him;  and  there  are  in  it  no  passages  or  quotations 
inconsistent  with  a  belief  in  his  authorship.  The  extract  is 
taken  from  James  H.  Todd's  edition  (Camden  Society,  1842). 
Wyclif 's  influence  was  well  established  by  1372,  and  in  that 
year  he  took  the  degree  of  Doctor  in  Divinity. 

1378-84.    The  Wyclif  Bible  (1378-84) 

Isaiah  xxxv.  and  LX.,  verse  10  to  end  .  .  18 
II.  Samuel  xvin.,  verse  24  .  •  .20 
Psalms  xc.,  cxxvi.  and  cxxvn 21 

THE  WYCLIF  BIBLE,  the  first  English  translation,  was  made 
(1378-84)  from  the  Vulgate  by  Wyclif  and  two  other  Oxford 
scholars,  Nicholas  of  Hereford  and  John  Purvey.  It  is  often 
defective  as  a  translation,  but  its  influence  upon  the  English 
nation  and  language  cannot  be  overestimated.  It  formed,  directly 
and  indirectly,  one  of  the  sources  of  all  the  great  versions  which 
followed  it,  and  the  sound  of  its  magnificent  cadences  was  carried 
by  them  all  into  the  Authorised  Version.  A  comparison  of  the 
passages  here  given  with  the  parallels  from  Coverdale  and  the 
Authorised  Version  (pp.  115-20  and  286-8)  will  show  that  the 
music  of  our  greatest  prose  is  essentially  the  music  of  the  Wyclif 
Bible,  and  that  in  places  where  it  had  been  destroyed  in  the 
labour  of  more  accurate  translation  from  the  Hebrew,  it  was  often 
restored  again  in  the  final  version.  One  example  may  be  given : 
Wyclif  wrote  in  Isaiah  xxxv.,  "  they  schulen  have  joy  and  glad- 
ness, and  sorrow  and  wailing  schulen  flee  away."  In  Coverdale 
this  becomes,  "  pleasure  and  gladness  shall  be  among  them. 
And  as  for  all  sorrow  and  heaviness,  it  shall  vanish  away."  But 
in  the  Authorised  Version  it  reappears  in  its  original  beauty :  "  they 
shall  obtain  joy  and  gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee 
away."  The  Psalms,  on  the  other  hand,  lost  little  and  gained 
much  in  Coverdale's  hands,  and  it  is  mainly  to  him  that  we 
owe  the  version  used  every  day  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 


4  GEOFFREY  CHAUCER  (II.)  [13.88 

1388.    Geoffrey  Chaucer  (II.) 

PAGE 

The  Canterbury  Tales.  Prologue  ...  33 
The  Death  of  Arcite  (Knight's  Tale)  .  .  .33 
Bred  and  Mylk  for  Children  (Tractatus  de  Con- 

clusionibus  Astrolabii)         .         .         .        *      34 

It  was  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  this  compilation  to  separate 
Chaucer's  work  into  two  parts,  showing  the  rise  of  two  different 
streams  of  influence.  "  Troilus  and  Criseyde  is  indeed  epoch- 
making  in  a  sense,  but  in  a  purely  literary  sense.  With  it  the 
Italian  element  enters  English  poetry,  to  its  signal  improvement 
and  refinement.  But  with  The  Canterbury  Tales  the  English 
people  enter,  and  poetry  becomes  truly  national  "  (R.  Garnett). 
1387  is  the  year  in  which  the  pilgrims  are  supposed  to  start  for 
Canterbury,  and  part  at  any  rate  of  the  poem  is  shown  to  have 
been  composed  not  later  than  1388,  by  the  mention  of  Middle- 
burg  in  Holland  as  the  seat  of  the  wool-staple.  But  parts  are 
perhaps  earlier.  In  The  Legend  of  Good  Women  (1385)  Chaucer 
says  that  he  has  already  written  "  al  the  love  of  Palamon  and 
Arcyte,"  and  there  are  lines  in  The  Knight's  Tale  which  show 
beyond  question  that  this  story  was  not  originally  intended  for 
The  Canterbury  Tales,  but  adapted  later  for  the  purpose.  Again, 
the  story  of  Griselda  is  told  by  the  Clerk  of  Oxenford,  who 
says  he  got  it  at  Padua,  from  "  Frauncys  Petrak  the  laureat 
poete  ":  and  in  fact  it  was  in  1373,  when  Chaucer  was  first  in 
Italy,  that  Petrarch  made  a  translation  of  it  into  Latin  from 
Boccaccio's  original.  Whether  Chaucer  then  saw  the  Italian 
MS.  or  not,  his  debt  to  it  is  plain. 

The  division  is  also  justified  by  the  reputed  influence  of 
Wyclif  on  Chaucer;  a  tradition  very  consistent  with  the  pictures 
of  churchmen  and  church  officials  drawn  and  coloured  in  The 
Canterbury  Tales.  Such  an  influence  could  only  have  taken  effect 
after  Chaucer's  earlier  poems  were  written,  but  must  have  come 
before  1388;  and  this  is  here  shown  by  the  order. 

1390.   John  Gower  (i325$*-i4o8) 

The  Story  of  Phoebus  and  Daphne  (Confessio 

Amantis,  III.)  ......       35 

GOWER  was  in  years  probably  rather  older  than  Chaucer,  but 
as  an  influence  he  must  be  placed  later,  both  as  Chaucer's  con- 
fessed disciple  and  because  his  only  achievement  in  English 


c.  1425]  JOHN  LYDGATE  5 

poetry,  the  Confessio  Amantis,  was  not  completed  until  1390. 
It  contains,  among  many  other  stories,  the  tale  of  Florent,  told 
also  by  Chaucer  as  The  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale,  and  the  tale  of 
Emare  or  Constance,  which  is  The  Man  of  Law's  Tale  in  The 
Canterbury  Tales,  and  is  there  prefaced  by  a  remarkable  speech 
on  Chaucer's  own  work,  with  a  side-glance  at  the  Confessio 
Amantis.  It  is  clear  from  this  that  Chaucer  had  read  Gower's 
work  before  it  was  completed,  and  it  is  a  possible  inference  that 
he  borrowed  the  two  stories  from  it ;  but  it  may  equally  well 
be  that  the  two  friends  had  read  the  old  romances  together, 
and  that  their  choice  of  material  coincided  in  these  two  cases, 
though  Chaucer's  taste  rejected  (as  the  Man  of  Law  says)  others 
which  were  not  too  strong  for  the  "  moral  Gower." 

In  any  case  Gower's  reputation  and  influence  were  very  great: 
though  far  inferior  to  Chaucer  in  genius,  he  was  his  coadjutor 
in  the  formation  of  English  as  a  literary  language.  His  enormous 
poem — it  has  more  lines  than  Homer — was  the  first  English 
poem  ever  translated  into  other  languages;  and  in  England  its 
influence  is  seen  in  the  work  of  many  poets,  including  Shake- 
speare (see  the  Prologue  to  Pericles,  Act  I.). 

1399.    Richard  the  Redeless  (Author  uncertain — 
1399) 

PAGE 

The  House  of  Commons  in  1398  37 

The  attribution  of  RICHARD  THE  REDELESS  (1399)  to  Langland 
is  doubtful — Professor  Saintsbury  says  "  one  of  the  least  doubt- 
ful of  such  things,"  but  the  vocabulary  is  different  and  the 
peculiarly  vigorous  humour  still  more  so.  The  pungent  realism 
of  this  picture  of  the  House  of  Commons,  if  it  comes  from  the 
author  of  Piers  Plowman,  would  give  us  a  new  idea  of  his  poetical 
range.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  not  easy  to  imagine  that  Langland 
had  a  contemporary  who  used  the  same  style  with  such  effect, 
and  yet  left  nothing  but  this  fragment  of  870  lines.  The  extract 
here  given  is  from  the  edition  of  Thomas  Wright  (Camden 
Society,  1838). 

c,  1425.   John  Lydgate  (1370^-1451) 

Description  of  a  Mediaeval  Schoolboy  (Testament) .      38 

LYDGATE  (like  his  "  less  accomplished  double,"  Hoccleve,  for 
whom  we  have  no  room  here)  was  a  professed  disciple,  imitator, 
and  continuator  of  Chaucer:  and  though  he  is  a  much  inferior 


6  SIR  JOHN   MANDEVILLE          [c.  1425 

story-teller  he  has  something  of  his  English  humour  and  delight 
in  the  characters  of  men,  as  well  as  in  the  pleasures  of  the 
country.  He  is  a  less  accomplished  verse  writer  than  Gower, 
but  to  a  modern  reader  far  better  worth  the  trouble.  He  is 
known  to  have  produced  important  work  between  1412  and  1430. 

c.  1425*    Sir  John  Mandeville  (i4th  Century) 

The  Lady  of  the   Land    (Travels    of   Sir  John 

Mandeville)      ......       39 

The  Watching  of  the  Sparrowhawk  (Ibid.)       .       41 

"  SIR  JOHN  MANDEVILLE  "  was  almost  certainly  the  pseudonym 
of  an  Englishman  named  John  de  Burgoyne  or  Bourgignon,  who 
died  at  Liege  in  1372;  but  he  was  hardly  an  English  author, 
for  his  book  of  Travels  (1356)  was  written  originally  in  French 
and  only  translated  into  English  (from  a  Latin  version)  after 
his  death.  The  date  is  not  known,  but  it  is  certainly  not  later 
than  1430,  and  may  be  as  early  as  1400.  Its  popularity  in  the 
mediaeval  world  was  unparalleled — the  three  hundred  MS.  copies 
which  survive  include  versions  in  twelve  European  languages — 
and  its  importance  as  a  model  can  hardly  be  overestimated :  "  it 
is  the  first  book  of  belles  lettres  in  English  prose  "  (Saintsbury). 

Chester  Plays 

The  Sacrifice  of  Isaac  (S*i4th  Century,  spelling 

later)       .......       42 

THE  CHESTER  PLAYS  were  not  printed  until  1591,  but  they  are 
ascribed  to  the  fourteenth  century,  or  possibly  the  thirteenth. 
Conjecture  based  on  the  inflectional  forms  of  words  is  made 
doubtful  by  the  fact  that  they  are  irregularly  used,  and  the 
text  may  have  been  tampered  with  by  copyists:  the  spelling 
is  certainly  late. 

1424-37.    James  L  of  Scotland  (1394-1437) 

The  Great  Change  (The  Kingis  Quhair)      ,         ,       50 

The  immediate  following  of  Chaucer  was  stronger  in  Scotland 
than  in  England.  The  Kingis  Quhair  is  not  only  Chaucerian, 
and  supremely  elegant,  but  it  lifts  the  spring-song  of  love  from 


c.  1462]  ROBERT   HENRYSON  7 

the  instrumental  music  of  words  to  the  ecstasy  of  a  new  vision. 
Though  the  type  of  the  poem,  and  its  language — a  mixture  of 
northern  and  southern  dialects — are  of  a  marked  fourteenth- 
century  brand,  such  a  passage  as  that  here  quoted  belongs  to 
the  poetry  which  is  timeless.  King  James  died  in  1437. 


1452.    The  Paston  Letters 

PAGE 

John  Amend-all  (1452)  .....  53 
Information  against  Robert  Ledham  ...  54 
An  Eton  Boy's  Wooing  (1479)  ....  57 

THE  PASTON  LETTERS  are  not,  in  the  strict  sense,  literature, 
but  they  exhibit  with  great  vividness  the  life  of  the  English  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  and  thereby  form  an  invaluable  link  between 
the  age  of  Chaucer  and  Langland  and  the  age  of  the  Tudors. 
They  should  be  remembered  side  by  side  with  Malory's  Morte 
Darthur  in  any  estimate  of  English  character.  As  historical 
material  for  literature  they  have  been  used  by  several  novelists: 
last  by  R.  L.  Stevenson,  who  borrowed  from  the  proceedings 
concerning  Robert  Ledham  (1452),  here  extracted,  the  green- 
wood part  of  The  Black  Arrow  and  some  of  the  names  of  his 
characters,  with  many  other  hints.  It  is  difficult  now  (as  perhaps 
in  1452)  to  make  out  whether  Ledham  himself,  or  Roger  Chirche, 
was  actually  John  Amend-all. 

In  the  Eton  boy's  letter  the  figure  of  the  squire's  younger 
brother  in  his  search  for  a  wife  appears  for  the  first  time  in 
English. 


c.  1462.    Robert  Henryson  (i5th  Century) 

Robin  and  Makyne.         .         .         *         »         »       59 

HENRYSON  is  the  second  great  Scottish  poet  of  the  Chaucerian 
School.  Dr.  Garnett  calls  him  "  a  genius,  who  with  one  aspect 
looks  back  to  Chaucer,  with  the  other  forwards  to  Burns  and 
Allan  Ramsay."  He  was  probably  born  about  1421,  but  there 
is  nothing  to  fix  his  date,  except  the  fact  that  he  was  admitted 
to  Glasgow  University  in  1462  as  "Venerabilis  vir  Magister 
Robert  Henryson  " :  the  title-page  of  his  book  (long  after  his  death) 
calls  him  "  Schoolmaster  in  Dunfermline."  The  poem  here 
given  is  the  first  pastoral  poem  or  eclogue  in  English. 


8  PILGRIMS'  SEA  VOYAGE     [isth  Cent. 

1 5th  Century.    The  Pilgrims'  Sea  Voyage    PAGE 
(Author  unknown)      „  63 

THE  PILGRIMS'  VOYAGE  is  the  earliest  sea  song  in  English ;  but 
it  is  not  the  first  appearance  of  the  sea  tradition.  See  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  Shipman  in  The  Canterbury  Tales  (Prologue)  and  the 
nautical  metaphors  in  the  last  three  lines  of  the  extract  from 
Richard  the  Redeless  (1399,  p.  38).  There  are  also  (though  not 
here)  two  poems  by  Lawrence  Minot,  dated  1352,  on  the  vic- 
tories of  Sluys  and  "  Les  Espagnols  sur  Mer  " :  republished  by 
Professor  Firth  in  his  Naval  Songs  and  Ballads  (Navy  Record 
Society,  1907). 

1484.   William  Caxton  (1422^-910 

Proem  to  Canterbury  Tales  (1484)  «         .       65 

CAXTON  printed  and  published  his  translation  of  The  Recuyell 
of  the  Histories  of  Troye  in  1474,  but  the  memory  of  his  excellent 
prose  has  been  kept  alive  by  his  edition  of  Malory,  which  he 
printed,  with  his  own  Proem,  in  1484.  Malory's  own  reputation 
dates  from  the  same  event  and  year,  though  the  Morte  Darthur 
was  actually  completed  in  1469. 

1484.    Sir  Thomas  Malory 

How  by  Misadventure  of  an  Adder  the  Battle 

began, 67 

How  King  Arthur  commanded  to  cast  his  Sword 

Excalibur  into  the  Water,  ....         .         .       70 

1490.   John  Skelton  (1460-1529) 

To  Mistress  Margaret  Hussey  73 

This  piece  is  the  best  proof  that  SKELTON  could  write  grace- 
fully: in  the  main  he  was  a  jovial  burlesque  poet,  who,  like 
Butler  (1663,  p.  391),  "  wrote  doggerel  with  genius."  Caxton  in 
1490  speaks  of  him  as  Poet  Laureate  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 

1503*   William  Dunbar  1465^-1530$') 

In  Honour  of  the  City  of  London      ,         .         .       73 
Lament  for  the  Makers    .         .         .         *  75 


I5th-i6th  Cent.]    ANONYMOUS  POETRY  9 

DUNBAR  is  the  third  great  poet  of  Scotland,  and  fully  the 
equal  of  King  James  and  Robert  Henryson.  His  praise  of  London 
has  a  kind  of  Biblical  splendour  and  fervour  almost  rivalling  the 
praise  of  the  New  Jerusalem  by  the  unknown  E.  B.  P.  at  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  LAMENT  FOR  THE  MAKERS  is  a  fine  example  of  the  Latin 
refrain,  and  of  great  literary  interest  from  its  references  to 
Chaucer,  Gower  and  the  rest.  His  poem  to  Margaret  of  England 
was  presented  in  1503,  and  a  volume  of  his  poems  was  printed 
in  1508. 

Anonymous  Poetry  (i5th  and  i6th  Centuries) 

PAGE 

Gossip  Mine  (c.  1500)      .         .         .  79 

Quia  Amore  Langueo  82 

The  Nut-brown  Maid  86 

May  in  the  Green-wood  .....  96 

A  Little  Geste  of  Robin  Hood  and  his  Meynie    .  97 

These  anonymous  poems  are  all  undated,  and  are  here  grouped 
together  for  convenience,  at  the  turn  of  the  century.  GOSSIP 
MINE  is  a  picture  of  English  manners,  and  the  first  poem  on 
the  great  national  theme  of  Drink,  which  was  only  touched 
incidentally  by  the  author  of  Piers  Plowman  (Gula,  in  Passus  V.), 
and  by  Chaucer  when  introducing  the  drunken  Miller  in  The 
Canterbury  Tales. 

QUIA  AMORE  LANGUEO  is  the  first  and  greatest  religious  lyric 
in  English. 

THE  NUT-BROWN  MAID  was  first  published  in  1502.  "  The 
ring  and  swing  of  the  metre,  of  which  no  previous  example  seems 
to  exist  .  .  .  the  tenderness  and  sweetness  .  .  .  the  dramatic 
management  of  the  story,  and  the  modest  cogency  of  the  moral," 
make  it,  as  Professor  Saintsbury  says,  "  a  pearl  of  poetry  for 
ever."  It  seems  to  have  been  beyond  imitation  by  any  later 
poet,  but  its  repute  has  been  great  and  fruitful. 

The  two  pieces  which  follow  continue  the  tradition  of  the 
English  Greenwood,  which  is  not  merely  "  literary  "  but  human 
and  national.  Robin  Hood  is  the  hero  of  a  great  number  of 
ballads:  his  last  effective  reappearance  was  in  the  early  nine- 
teenth century,  in  Scott's  Ivanhoe  and  Peacock's  Maid  Marian. 


io  STEPHEN  HAWES 

1523**    Stephen  Hawes 

PAGE 

An  Epitaph    .......     101 

STEPHEN  HAWES,  whose  dates  are  unknown,  continued  the 
Chaucerian  tradition  in  the  early  sixteenth  century,  and  seems 
to  be  feeling  his  way  towards  a  Spenserian  kind  of  allegory. 
In  a  single  passage  of  his  one  remembered  poem  he  struck  a 
bell  whose  tone  has  never  ceased  to  vibrate. 

1523*    Lord  Berners  (1467-1533) 

The  Battle  of  Otterburn  .....     101 

JOHN  BOURCHIER,  LORD  BERNERS,  as  a  translator  of  French 
romance  is  the  counterpart  of  Malory,  a  gifted  writer  of  prose, 
but  historically  rather  than  poetically  chivalrous.  His  style  is 
highly  personal  and  highly  accomplished;  its  secrets  remain 
unexhausted  to  this  day.  William  Morris  drew  upon  Berners' 
Froissart  (1523)  in  his  prose  and  verse:  in  The  Hollow  Land 
and  The  Dream  of  John  Ball ;  in  Love  is  Enough  and  in  the 
Prologue  to  The  Earthly  Paradise. 

1531*    Sir  Thomas  Elyot  (1490^-1546) 

Parents  and  Education  (The  Governour)      .         .     107 

With  The  Governour  (1531)  begins  the  long  list  of  English 
treatises  on  Education.  Next  comes  Cheke,  a  pedant  (1514-57), 
and  then  Ascham,  a  distinguished  prig  (1514-68),  who  feared  art 
and  literature:  there  is  no  room  here  for  either. 

1516-1535  (1551)*  Sir  Thomas  More  (1478-1535) 
The   Death  of  Hastings   (History  of  King 

Richard  HI.)    ......     109 

Communism  in  Utopia  (Utopia)        .         .         .     in 
Military  Discipline  in  Utopia  (Utopia)        .         .114 

MORE'S  Utopia  was  written  in  Latin  (1516),  published  abroad, 
and  not  translated  until  sixteen  years  after  his  death ;  its  influence, 
therefore,  must  have  been  gradual,  and  effective  not  upon  the 
style  of  his  successors,  but  upon  their  thought.  It  was  profound 
and  lasting.  Cf.  Bacon's  New  Atlantis,  1627;  Harrington's 
Oceana,  1656;  Bellamy's  Looking  Backward,  1889;  William 
Morris's  News  from  Nowhere,  1890;  W.  D.  Howells'  A  Traveller 
from  Altruria,  1894;  H.  G.  Wells's  A  Modern  Utopia,  1905. 


I54Q?1]  HENRY   HOWARD  n 

1535*    The  Coverdale  Bible 

J''J  PAGE 

Isaiah  xxxv.  and  LX.,  verse  10  ,  .  .  .  115 
II.  Samuel  xviii.,  verse  24  .  .  .  .  117 
Psalms  xc.,  cxxvi.  and  cxxvn 118 

MILES  COVERDALE  (1488-1568),  sometime  Bishop  of  Exeter, 
was  the  translator  of  this  version  of  the  Bible  (1535),  the  first 
ever  published  in  England.  (Henry  VIII.'s  Commission  had  in 
1530  reported  in  favour  of  a  new  translation  being  made,  but 
against  its  being  issued  to  the  public.)  The  "  Matthew  Bible  "  of 
1537  incorporated  Coverdale's,  which  was  also  again  used  in  the 
preparation  of  Cranmer's  "  Great  Bible,"  1539.  Coverdale  was 
thus,  though  not  a  zealot,  fortunate  and  persevering  enough  to 
succeed,  where  Tyndale  perished,  in  the  struggle  against  the 
Papal  party  for  the  publication  of  the  Bible  in  England.  1535  is 
therefore  a  crucial  point  in  the  history  of  the  English  language. 

"  We  cannot  undo  the  past.  English  Literature  will  ever  have 
been  Protestant  "  (Cardinal  Newman). 

1540$*    Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  (1503-42) 

Forget  not  Yet 120 

1 540  4   Henry  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey  (1517  ^-47) 

The  Means  to  attain  Happy  Life  .  .  .121 
Virgil,  jEneid  II 121 

The  poems  of  WYATT  and  SURREY  can  only  be  dated  conjec- 
turally.  Wyatt  was  the  elder  by  about  fifteen  years  and  has  been 
described  as  standing  to  Surrey  in  the  relation  of  master  to  pupil  ; 
but  the  work  of  both  shows  the  same  origin  and  development, 
as  though  it  were  the  result  of  a  joint  trade  with  Italian  poetry, 
carried  on  by  two  partners  who  had  both  gone  to  school  to 
Chaucer.  Their  most  remarkable  imports  into  England  were 
the  sonnet,  and  (in  Surrey's  case)  blank  verse.  In  Surrey's 
translation  of  Virgil  here  given,  lines  like 

Unto  the  son  of  Venus,  the  goddes, 
and 

Long  to  furrow  large  space  of  stormy  seas 

are  as  Italian  and  as  Chaucerian  as  some  of   the  ten-syllable 
lines  in  Wyatt's  sonnets: 

With  his  hardiness  takes  displeasure. 


12  JOHN  FOXE  [1563 

But  Surrey's  work  is  an  advance :  there  is  a  wider  stretch  between 
Wyatt's  sonnets  and  Shakespeare's  than  between  Surrey's  Virgil 
and  Paradise  Lost,  Rhythms  such  as 

Holding  backward  the  steps  where  we  had  come 
In  the  dark  night,  looking  all  round  about 

are  exactly  paralleled  by  Milton,  who  was  not  working  in 
the  dark. 


PAGE 


1563,   John  Foxe  (1516-87) 

The  Burning  of  Cranmer  (Acts  and  Monuments)       123 

The  English  Literature,  as  Cardinal  Newman  said,  is  histori- 
cally a  Protestant  Literature;  and  Foxe's  Acts  and  Monuments 
(1563)  (known  significantly  as  Foxe's  Book  of  Martyrs),  had  an 
immense  effect  on  the  mind  and  emotion  of  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth-century  England. 

1570-80$*   William  Cecil,  Lord  Burleigh  (1520- 

1598) 
Ten  Precepts  .         .         .         .         *         .125 

BURLEIGH'S  name  was  a  synonym  for  grave  wisdom.  He  appears 
here  as  a  Polonius,  sententious  and  commonplace,  but  on  his 
own  plane  irrefutable.  The  Precepts  are,  like  The  Paston  Letters, 
documents  rather  than  literature:  but  they  read  like  an  antici- 
pation of  Bacon's  Essays : 

"  Be  not  served  with  kinsmen,  or  friends,  or  men  intreated 
to  stay;  for  they  expect  much  and  do  little;  nor  with  such  as 
are  amorous,  for  their  heads  are  intoxicated."  C/.  pp.  236-7. 

The  Precepts  must  have  been  written  during  the  early  youth 
of  "  son  Robert,"  whose  dates  are  not  certainly  known,  but  who 
is  stated  to  have  entered  at  Cambridge  in  1581. 

1572.   John  Knox  (1505-72) 

His  Defence  to  the  Queen  (History  of  the  Re- 
formation of  Religion  in  Scotland)         .         .130 

KNOX  is  another  great  Puritan  influence;  but  a  political 
and  controversial  writer  rather  than  a  man  of  letters.  His 
one  great  book,  The  History  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland, 
appeared  after  his  death  in  1572. 


15791  JOHN  LYLY  13 

1576.    Raphael  Holinshed  (1525-78) 

The  Judgment  of  King  Richard  II.   .         .         .     133 

HOLINSHED  is  a  chronicler  with  more  distinction  in  his  style 
than  most  of  his  class.  But  his  importance  to  literature  lies 
mainly  in  the  copious  material  which  he  supplied  to  Shake- 
speare for  his  historical  plays;  and  even  his  phrases  often 
reappear  in  glory.  His  Chronicle  was  published  in  1576. 

1579.   Sir  Thomas  North  (i535$*-i6oiO 

The  End  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  (Plutarch's 

Lives)      .......     140 

NORTH'S  translation  of  Plutarch  (1579)  was  a  strong  reinforce- 
ment of  the  classical  influence  in  England,  and  was  quarried 
for  moral  sentiments  and  political  and  patriotic  examples  by 
successive  generations.  It  supplied  also  the  material  for  Shake- 
speare's classical  plays  and  no  insignificant  part  of  their  mag- 
nanimity. Compare  the  passage  here  given  with  Shakespeare's 
transmutation  of  it,  on  pp.  237-43. 

1579.   John  Lyly  (1554^-1 606$*) 

Of  the  Education  of  Youth  (Eaphues)          .         .     143 
Apelles'  Song  ......     144 

Pan's  Song 145 

LYLY'S  essay  on  education  is  contained  in  his  Anatomy  of  Wit 
(1579),  but  forms  a  separate  division  under  the  title  of  Euphues 
and  his  Ephebus.  It  is  based  on  Plutarch's  treatise. 

Lyly's  prose  was  a  deliberate  attempt  to  create  a  highly 
ornate  style  in  English,  according  with  the  high-flown  spirit  of 
the  time.  -  It  was  followed  up  by  Lodge  and  Philip  Sidney 
(Arcadia);  but  faded  before  the  more  dignified  and  personal 
art  of  Drummond  of  Hawthornden  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne. 
The  Euphuist  fashion  was  parodied  by  Shakespeare  in  Love's 
Labour's  Lost  and  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  The  Monastery, 
Chapter  X.,  a  sketch  imitated  from  Ben  Jonson's  Every 
Man  out  of  his  Humour,  Act  IV.  Scene  vi.,  and  after  all 
Lyly  is  read  to-day  with  a  new  admiration.  He  was  also 
an  accomplished  lyrical  poet,  and  the  author  of  romantic 
plays  which  lead  on  to  the  Forest  of  Arden  and  the  wood 
of  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream. 


14  SIR  FRANCIS   DRAKE  [1588 

1588.  Sir  Francis  Drake  (1545-96) 

j  \    j^tj    y   i  PAGE 

Letter  to  Lord  Henry  Seymour          ,         .         .     146 
Letter  to  [Y]  Walsyngham          ....     147 

If  we  had  no  more  than  these  two  letters  we  should  still  know 
much  of  the  fight  with  the  Armada,  of  Drake,  of  English  pat- 
riotism, and  of  the  English  sea  service.  But  beyond  this  they 
have  the  style  of  the  age  and  the  man.  The  paragraph  of  the 
"  orange  trees  "  belongs  to  the  literature  of  history.  The  inten- 
sive understatement  in  "  some  grief  "  (c/.  Shakespeare's  "  Some 
danger!")  is  characteristically  English,  and  has  been  widely 
revived  during  the  war,  1914-18. 

1589.  Robert  Greene  (1560-92) 

James  IV.       .......     148 

A  Last  Warning      .         .         .         .         .         .     149 

Swinburne  has  remarked  that  in  Richard  II.  the  spirits  of 
Greene  and  Marlowe  "  are  visibly  contending  for  the  mastery 
of  Shakespeare's  poetic  and  dramatic  adolescence."  The  lines 
here  given  show  where  Shakespeare  learnt  the  trick  of  inter- 
spersing his  blank  verse  with  rhymed  couplets;  and  in  Love's 
Labour's  Lost  the  use  of  other  metres  in  dialogue  is  clearly 
traceable  to  the  influence  of  the  same  writer ;  but  the  resemblance 
extends  further,  to  the  imagination  and  tone  of  country  scenes 
and  humour.  Greene's  Friar  Bacon  was  produced  in  1589. 

The  remarkable  outburst  called  A  LAST  WARNING  is  famous 
for  its  clear  reference  to  Shakespeare  and  his  relation  to  his 
better  educated  rivals  in  playwriting.  "  There  is  an  upstart  crow, 
beautified  with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  tiger's  heart  wrapt  in  a 
player's  hide  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bombast  out  a  blank 
verse  as  the  best  of  you ;  and  being  an  absolute  Johannes  factotum, 
is  in  his  own  conceit  the  only  Shakescene  in  a  country."  The 
"  tiger's  heart "  line  is  parodied  from  one  in  Shakespeare's 
3  Henry  VI.  (I.  iv.  137). 

1590.  George  Peele  (1558^-970 

A  Farewell  to  Arms          .         .         .         .         .152 

PEELE  was  another  of  the  "  University  Wits."  His  blank  verse 
is  at  least  as  good  as  Greene's,  but  had  less  effect ;  his  lyrics  are 


1590]  THOMAS   LODGE  15 

better.    The  Farewell  to  Arms  has  for  three  centuries  helped  to 
keep  fresh  the  musical  note  of  chivalry.  It  was  written  in  1590. 

1590.    Edmund  Spenser  (1552^-99) 

PAGE 

The  Faery  Queen,  Book  I.  Canto  i.  .         .         .     153 

Epithalamion  .         .         .         .         .         .156 

Easter 167 

The  palace  of  SPENSER'S  mind  was  adorned  by  collections  from 
many  poets,  Latin,  Italian,  and  English.  The  Shepherd's  Calendar 
is  the  work  of  one  who  remembers  Virgil,  Chaucer,  and  Piers 
Plowman.  The  February  part  of  it,  The  Oak  and  the  Brere,  is 
in  a  metre  which  Spenser  may  have  made  for  himself,  or  taken 
(as  Professor  Saintsbury  thinks)  from  an  early  paraphrase  of 
Genesis  and  Exodus;  and  it  may  again  have  been  borrowed  or 
reinvented  by  Coleridge  for  his  Christabel.  If  we  have  here  a 
series  of  influences  or  bequests,  it  is  a  remarkable  one,  stretching 
from  the  thirteenth  to  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  "  Spenserian  stanza  "  used  in  The  Faery  Queen  may  also 
have  been  Spenser's  own  discovery,  achieved  by  adding  a  long 
ninth  line  to  one  of  the  Italian  eight-line  forms.  The  peculiar 
effect  of  this  might  well  have  been  suggested  by  the  final  line 
of  the  stanza  in  the  anonymous  thirteenth-century  poem  This 
World's  Joy.  (See  above,  English  Anthology,  p.  3.)  A  similar 
use  is  found  in  the  Epithalamion.  The  Faery  Queen  marks 
Spenser's  full  tide  as  1590,  the  year  in  which  he  returned  with 
it  from  Ireland. 


1590.    Thomas  Lodge  (1556-16250 

Rosalind's  Madrigal         .         .         .         .         .168 
The  Wrestling  Match      .         .         .         ,         .169 

LODGE'S  affinity  is  proclaimed  by  the  second  title  of  his  Rosa- 
lynde,  Euphues'  Golden  Legacie:  he  was,  like  Lyly,  a  satirist 
and  playwright,  and  an  experimenter  in  romantic  prose.  Rosa- 
lynde  (1590)  is  a  novel,  which  gave  Shakespeare  not  only  the 
material,  but  nearly  the  whole  material  for  his  As  You  Like  It; 
and  a  detailed  comparison  of  the  two  is  indispensable  for  any 
student  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  method.  The  Madrigal  here 
given  is  the  most  admirable  of  the  lyrics  interspersed  in  the  story. 


16  SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY  [1591 

1591.    Sir  Philip  Sidney  (1554-86)  PAGE 

Astrophel  and  Stella,  I.,  11.,  xxxi.,  LXIV.      .         .     172 
A  Dirge          .......     174 

Defence  of  Poesie    .         .         .         .         .  175 

SIR  PHILIP  SIDNEY  was  a  brilliant  Euphuist  who  died  in  1586 
at  the  height  of  an  almost  unequalled  reputation;  but  the 
influence  of  his  literary  work  must  be  dated  from  its  posthumous 
publication.  Astrophel  and  Stella  was  printed  in  1591 ;  the 
Defence  of  Poesie  (Apology  for  Poetrie)  in  1595.  The  former  is 
the  first  example  of  a  series  of  English  sonnets  written  in  accord- 
ance with  the  rule  given  in  the  famous  line,  "  Fool,  said  my 
Muse  to  me,  look  in  thy  heart  and  write."  The  Dirge  (included 
in  the  same  work)  gave  Tennyson  the  first  note  of  his  "  Ring  out, 
wild  bells,"  and  one  of  the  sonnets  is  echoed  in  the  same  poet's 
line,  "  And  if  you  kissed  her  feet  a  thousand  years." 

The  DEFENCE  OF  POESIE  is  in  a  somewhat  ornate  and  wandering 
style,  but  it  often  moves  the  heart  "  more  than  with  a  trumpet," 
and  is  always  of  great  interest  for  its  theory,  or  theories,  of 
poetry.  Wordsworth  must  have  approved  the  remarks  on 
"  rhyming  and  versing  "  (English  Anthology,  p.  179),  and  Pope 
those  on  verse  and  "  the  knitting  up  of  the  memory  "  (p.  180). 

1591.    Thomas  Campion  (1567  $'-1619) 

Laura  .......     180 

Devotion        .         .         .         .         *•  .     181 

Vobiscum  est  lope  .         .         .         .         .         .181 

O  Come  Quickly     ......     182 

CAMPION  was  a  learned  theorist  in  verse  writing,  and  published 
some  "  Observations  on  the  Art  of  English  Poesy."  The  prac- 
tical result  was  the  mastery  of  rhythms  quite  peculiar  to  himself 
and  specially  suited  for  musical  use.  The  various  collections 
in  the  Elizabethan  song  books,  of  which  Campion's  are  the 
finest  numbers,  form  a  region  of  poetry  hardly  entered  these 
two  hundred  years  past:  in  which  the  words  call  up  and  are 
themselves  transformed  by  the  sound  of  instruments  no  longer 
in  our  hands.  Carew  and  Herrick  had  the  touch  of  this  art; 
but  it  seems  to  have  died  with  our  musical  supremacy. 

One  of  Campion's  most  beautiful  lyrics  ("  Hark  all  you  ladies 
that  do  sleep  ")  was  published  without  his  name  in  an  appendix 
to  Sidney's  Astrophel  and  Stella.  His  Books  of  Airs  followed 
in  1601-17. 


1592]  CHRISTOPHER   MARLOWE  17 

1592.   Sir  Walter  Raleigh  (1552^-1618) 

PAGE 

The  Last  Fight  of  the  "  Revenge  "    .         .         .     182 
The  Conclusion      .         .         .         .         .         .188 

His  Pilgrimage 188 

RALEIGH'S  prose  marks  the  sobering  effect  of  "  real  "  life  and 
misfortune  upon  the  typical  Elizabethan.  Even  in  his  Revenge, 
written  as  early  as  1592,  he  shows  a  singular  restraint  and  gravity; 
in  his  History  of  the  World  he  proclaims  sea-power  as  the  first 
principle  of  Empire;  and  in  his  final  poem  he  is  as  religious 
and  as  resigned  as  any  Puritan. 

1592.   Samuel  Daniel  (1562-1619) 

Delia,  vi.,  xxxvi.,  XLK.  and  L 189 

DANIEL'S  sonnet-sequence  to  Delia  (1592)  was  one  of  the 
first  to  follow  Sidney's  Astrophel  and  Stella.  (The  numbers  are 
of  unequal  value,  and  these  four  are  decidedly  better  than  most 
of  them.)  The  fashion  spread  rapidly;  and  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  Shakespeare  was  not  following  it  when  he  wrote  his  sonnets : 
that  he  gave  them  no  personal  name  does  not  prove  that  they 
are  without  connection  or  order. 

1592*   Christopher  Marlowe  (1564-93) 

Edward  II.     .......     191 

Hero  and  Leander  ......     193 

"  MARLOWE'S  mighty  line  "  was  the  instrument  of  a  dramatic 
genius,  but  his  technique  was  not  even  so  advanced  as  Surrey's 
and  came  nowhere  near  Shakespeare's — he  did  not  live  long 
enough  to  learn  that  the  paragraph  and  not  the  single  line  is 
the  true  rhythmical  unit  of  blank  verse.  But  his  spirit,  in  Swin- 
burne's judgment,  conquered  Greene's  in  the  struggle  for  the 
mastery  of  Shakespeare.  The  passage  from  his  Edward  II. 
(^1592)  may  be  usefully  compared  with  the  abdication  scene 
in  Richard  II.;  but  it  does  not  prove,  as  some  have  main- 
tained, that  the  earlier  play  is  the  greater.  Intensity  is  Mar- 
lowe's strength,  till  it  becomes  his  weakness;  and  posterity 
has  forgotten  his  titanic  plays  for  those  of  a  more  human 
and  less  mortal  genius.  His  Hero  and  Leander  survives 
because  in  a  story  of  love  and  death  intensity  can  hardly 
seem  extravagant  or  unnatural. 
B 


i8  RICHARD   HOOKER  [1593 

1593*   Richard  Hooker  (1554-1600) 

PAGE 

Ecclesiastical  Polity          .         .         .         .         .     195 

HOOKER'S  is  a  classical  and  monumental  style,  but  it  is  the 
perfect  expression  of  the  man  who  wrote  it :  sincere  and  humane, 
learned  and  lively,  broad  and  massive,  patriotic  and  well  balanced ; 
adorned  with  fine  phrases  but  only  with  such  as  arise  naturally 
from  the  matter  and  the  appropriate  mood.  A  comparison  with 
the  work  of  any  or  all  of  the  Euphuists  will  show  the  importance 
of  Hooker  to  the  modern  prose  of  history,  science  and  politics. 
The  first  edition  (four  books)  of  The  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity 
was  licensed  in  1593 ;  the  fifth  book  appeared  in  1597,  and  the 
remainder  after  Hooker's  death. 

1594.   William  Shakespeare  (I.)  (1564-1616) 

Romeo  and  Juliet    .         .         .         .         ,         .201 

Richard  II.    .......     207 

Sonnets:  xvin.,  xxix.,  xxx.,  LIII.,  LXXIII.,  xcvm., 

CIV.,  CVI.,  CDC.,  CXVI.,  CXXIX.,  CXLVI.       .  .      209 

SHAKESPEARE'S  "  apprentice  "  years  were  ended  by  1594,  and 
Richard  IL  is  the  first  play  of  his  "  great  comedy  "  period :  see 
notes  on  Greene  and  Marlowe,  supra,  for  the  influences  under 
which  it  was  written.  The  speech  of  Gaunt  as  the  dying  English 
patriot,  has  had  an  unending  reverberation. 

ROMEO  AND  JULIET  is  assigned  to  1596:  the  dialogue  in  the 
flatter  passages  (e.g.  English  Anthology,  p.  205),  and  the  abundant 
rhyming  couplets,  are  still  reminiscent  of  Greene.  Plot  and 
characters  are  partly  borrowed  from  a  poem  by  one  Broke,  called 
Romeus  and  Juliett.  The  Sonnets  were  not  published  till  1609, 
but  they  must  belong  to  this  period. 

1594*    Michael  Drayton  (1563-1631) 

The  Parting  .......     214 

Agincourt       .......     214 

DRAYTON'S  sonnet  -  sequence  Idea  appeared  in  1594,  and 
was  reprinted  with  additional  numbers  in  1599,  1602,  1605,  and 
1619.  The  sonnet  here  given  is  one  of  those  added  in  1619 


1598]  FRANCIS   MERES  19 

and  is  infinitely  his  best.  Its  authorship  has  been  disputed,  but 
without  proof.  Agincourt,  again,  is  much  the  best  of  his  historical 
and  patriotic  poems,  and  evidently  set  the  time  for  Tennyson's 
Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade.  It  was  itself  apparently  founded  on 
an  older  ballad  ("  Agincourt,  Agincourt,  know  ye  not  Agincourt ") 
of  considerable  merit,  which  may  be  found  in  War-Songs,  by 
Christopher  Stone  and  General  Sir  Ian  Hamilton. 

1598,    Richard  Hakluyt  (i 552^-1616) 

PAGE 

The  Principal  Navigations  of  the  English  Nation  .     318 

HAKLUYT'S  huge  collection  appeared  in  1598,  after  an  incuba- 
tion which  no  doubt  covered  the  whole  sea  life  of  Drake  and 
his  contemporary  adventurers.  It  is  the  muniment  chest  of  the 
English  sea  service:  Hakluyt  himself  contributes  little  enough 
in  his  own  hand,  but  writes  an  excellent  style  in  a  spirit  so 
characteristically  English  as  to  appear  almost  an  anachronism. 


1598,    Francis  Meres  (1565-1647) 

A  Comparative  Discourse  of  our  English  Poets 

with  the  Greeke,  Latine,  and  Italian  Poets  .     224 

MERES,  though  no  great  writer,  rendered  an  immense  service 
to  literature  when  he  recorded  his  estimate  of  the  English  poets 
and  especially  of  those  of  his  own  time.  The  less  remarkable 
the  man  himself,  the  better  is  his  evidence  of  contemporary 
opinion. 

The  COMPARATIVE  DISCOURSE  (1598)  names  Shakespeare  eight 
times,  and  the  inferences  which  may  be  drawn  are  many  and 
obvious.  The  date  of  twelve  plays  is  thus  fixed  before  1598: 
and  some  if  not  all  of  the  Sonnets  fall  within  the  same  line. 
The  testimony  to  Shakespeare's  acknowledged  supremacy  is  the 
more  convincing  because  it  is  not  pressed.  His  name  appears 
four  times  in  lists  where  he  is  placed  almost  indiscriminately 
among  a  number  of  others:  once  he  is  given  alone  as  the  re- 
incarnation of  "  the  wittie  sweete  soule  of  Ovid  " ;  once  as 
among  our  best  poets  for  comedy ;  and  once  as  the  most  excellent 
in  both  kinds  (comedy  and  tragedy)  for  the  stage.  Incidentally 
is  added  the  memorable  sentence  that  "  the  Muses  would  speak 
with  Shakespeare's  fine  filed  phrase,  if  they  would  speak  English." 


20  ANONYMOUS   SONGS       [i6th  Cent. 

Anonymous  Songs  and  Ballads  of  the  i6th  or 
early  iyth  Century 

As  ye  came  from  the  Holy  Land        .         .         .     226 
The  New  Jerusalem  (1601)       ....     228 

Icarus  (1601)  .......     229 

Tears  (1603)  .......     230 

There  is  a  Lady  Sweet  and  Kind       .         .         .231 

The  first  of  these  pieces  is  of  unknown  date.  It  used  to  be 
generally  ascribed  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  but  without  good 
reason:  it  is  of  too  distinctive  beauty  to  be  by  any  of  the  well- 
known  poets. 

Quotations  from  the  Song  of  Mary  or  versions  of  it  have  been 
included  in  many  hymnals;  but  for  some  curious  reason  the 
best  stanzas — notably  the  one  beginning  "  Thy  gardens  and 
thy  gallant  walks  "  —  have  almost  always  been  among  those 
omitted.  The  three  remaining  pieces  come  from  the  Elizabethan 
song-books,  already  remarked  upon  under  Campion  (1591). 

1597.  Francis  Bacon  (1561-1626) 

His  Account  of  Poetry  (Advancement  of  Learning)    231 
Paraphrase  of  Psalm  xc.  .         .         .         .         .     235 

Of  Love         .......     235 

BACON'S  Essays  began  to  appear  in  1597,  but  were  added  to 
in  later  editions.  The  Advancement  of  Learning  was  published 
in  1605.  These  two  passages  are  selected  in  order  to  suggest 
a  comparison  between  Baconian  and  Shakespearean  Poetry  and 
Love.  Bacon  wrote  a  little  verse,  which  has  survived:  neither 
it  nor  his  "  Account  of  Poetry  "  could  have  come  from  the 
author  of  the  Shakespearean  poems  and  plays.  The  impossibility 
of  gathering  figs  from  thistles  (however  fine  and  nutritious)  is 
still  dearer  when  the  Essay  on  Love  is  read  immediately  before 
the  scene  which  follows  from  Antony  and  Cleopatra — the  extreme 
of  prosaic  common  sense,  materialistic  and  moralistic,  contrasted 
with  the  extreme  of  unsparing  passion  and  poetic  vision. 

1598.  William  Shakespeare  (II.) 

Antony  and  Cleopatra      .....     237 
Fidele    ........     244 

Songs  from  The  Tempest  »••••.«',,     244 


1599]  BEN  JONSON  21 

It  was  necessary  to  divide  SHAKESPEARE'S  work  into  two  parts 
under  two  separate  dates,  not  because  the  nature  of  his  influence 
changed  materially  after  it  had  been  once  established,  but  because 
it  would  not  otherwise  have  been  possible  to  put  Meres  and 
Bacon  in  their  right  places  with  regard  to  him.  This  second 
period  runs  from  1598  to  1611  and  includes  all  the  great  comedies 
and  tragedies. 

In  1614,  two  years  before  his  death,  he  was  addressed  as 
follows  by  Thomas  Freeman  in  his  Rubbe  and  a  Great  Cast: 

Shakespeare,  that  nimble  Mercury  thy  braine 

Lulls  many  hundred  Argus-eyes  asleepe, 

So  fit  for  all  them  fashionest  thy  vaine, 

At  th'  horse-foote  fountaine  thou  hast  drunk  full  deepe, 

Vertue's  or  vice's  theme  to  thee  all  one  is.  ... 

Besides,  in  plaies  thy  wit  windes  like  Meander; 

When  needy  new  composers  borrow  more 

Than  Terence  doth  from  Plautus  or  Menander. 

But  to  praise  thee  aright  I  want  thy  store. 


1599,    Richard  Barnefield  (1574-1627) 


PAGE 


Philomel         .......     245 

BARNEFIELD'S  one  good  poem  is  so  good  and  so  famous  that  a 
place  must  be  found  for  it.  Its  effect  may  be  judged  from  the 
fact  that  it  was  formerly  supposed  to  be  by  Shakespeare.  It 
first  appeared  anonymously  in  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  (1599). 

1599.    Ben  Jonson  (1573-1637) 

Every  Man  in  his  Humour        ....  246 

Hymn  to  Diana       ......  248 

To  Celia         .......  249 

An  Elegy 250 

Epitaph          .......  251 

To  the  Memory  of  my  Beloved  Master  William 

Shakspeare       ......  252 

On  Education  and  Style  (Discoveries)          .         .  254 

BEN  JONSON'S  name  was  made  by  1599,  for  Every  Man  in  his 
Humour  was  acted  by  Shakespeare  at  the  "  Globe  "  before  the 
end  of  1598.  He  was  a  greater  man  to  his  contemporaries  than 


22  BALLADS  [c.  1600 

he  can  ever  be  to  later  generations.  His  plays  are  learned  and 
original,  but  they  lead  nowhere ;  they  are  for  an  age,  not  for  all 
time;  and  to  all  but  antiquarians  they  are  dull.  His  lyrics  are 
elegant  and  often  felicitous,  but  never  inspired.  They  have  had, 
however,  a  considerable  popularity  and  some  influence.  To  one 
of  them — the  "  Elegy  "  here  given — Tennyson  seems  to  have 
owed  the  metre  of  In  Memoriam.  The  little  "  Epitaph  "  is  so 
charming  that  Jonson  was  for  generations  credited  also  with 
William  Browne's  lines  on  the  Countess  of  Pembroke — 44  Sidney's 
sister,  Pembroke's  mother  "  (English  Anthology,  p.  295).  The 
lines  "  To  the  Memory  of  my  Beloved  Master  William  Shak- 
speare,"  prefixed  to  the  First  Folio  (1623),  are  uneven  but  of 
the  highest  interest  and  reputation. 

c,  1600,   Ballads  (Authorship  unknown) 

PAGE 

The  Wife  of  Usher's  Well         .         .         .         .257 

Thomas  the  Rhymer        .....  259 

Clerk  Saunders       ......  262 

The  Twa  Corbies  (Scottish  version)  .         .         .  266 

Waly,Waly 267 

Binnorie         .......  268 

The  Dowie  Houms  of  Yarrow  ....  270 

Helen  of  Kirconnell         .....  272 

Sir  Patrick  Spens    ......  273 

"  THE  BALLADS  "  are  of  unknown  date;  the  place  here  assigned 
is  that  to  which  their  final  literary  form  seems  to  entitle  them. 
Of  their  origin  there  are  four  different  theories:  one  proclaims 
them  to  be  "  communal  " — i.e.  put  together  from  the  impromptu 
verses  contributed  by  players  in  a  round  game.  Another  makes 
them  traditional  and  degenerate  versions  of  poems  by  the 
mediaeval  romancers:  a  third  attributes  them  to  poets  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  who  did  not  care  to  place  them  among  their 
acknowledged  work.  The  fourth  opinion — that  of  Professor 
Gummere  —  is  that  they  were  made  by  single  authors  and 
brought  to  their  present  form  by  those  who  handed  them 
down  in  succession. 

This  theory  alone  would  account  for  both  their  poetic  mastery 
and  their  epic  view  of  life  in  a  primitive  or  half-civilised  com- 
munity. In  them  are  mingled  in  an  extraordinary  degree  courage 
and  tenderness,  pity  and  stark  realism — the  sense  of  a  world 


:6io-i2]  JOHN   DONNE  23 

full  of  tragedy,  significance,  and  heroic  beauty.  Their  singularity 
lies  in  their  artistic  form  and  diction — the  latter  long  inherited 
and  partially  outworn,  the  former  still  vital  and  ready  to  the 
hand  that  can  use  it.  Their  influence  has  been  very  great:  they 
have  kept  alive  a  tradition  akin  to  the  chivalrous  but  distinct 
from  it,  and  they  have  from  time  to  time  carried  their  influence 
into  literature — they  haunted  the  memory  of  Shakespeare,  stirred 
the  heart  of  Sidney,  and  inspired  both  the  poetry  and  the  prose 
of  Walter  Scott. 

1610-12.    John  Donne  (1573-1631) 

PACK 

The  Anniversary     ......     276 

The  Ecstacy  .......     277 

Stanzas  from  a  Litany      .....     279 

To  Sir  Henry  Goodyere  .         .         .         .         .281 

Vision  (An  Anatomy  of  the  World)     .         .         .     283 

DONNE  is  a  supreme  example  of  the  poet  who  hands  on  in- 
comparably more  than  he  received.  He  summed  up  many 
influences  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  but  transmitted  to  posterity 
an  expression  of  them  more  modern  by  three  hundred  years 
than  the  work  of  any  of  his  contemporaries.  Naturally,  therefore, 
he  has  been  regarded  by  many  as  a  revolutionary  or  a  decadent; 
and  by  some  the  ruin  of  English  verse  has  been  laid  to  his  charge. 
On  the  other  hand  his  admirers  count  him  among  the  few  still 
living  forces  of  the  past.  There  is  no  middle  position :  admirable 
or  regrettable,  Donne  is  a  portent,  the  sudden  revelation  of  the 
human  mind  as  no  simple  substance  but  the  union  and  unrest 
of  a  multitude  of  atoms :  a  scene  not  merely  of  conflicting  motives 
but  of  co-existing  and  contending  personalities.  He  is,  at  the 
same  time  and  in  the  same  extreme  degree,  mystical  and  melan- 
choly, sensual  and  tender,  witty  and  uncouth,  subtle  and 
tremendously  direct,  brutally  satirical  and  profoundly  religious. 
Experience  of  such  a  range  and  depth  belonged  no  doubt  to 
Shakespeare  too — his  elder  by  only  nine  years — but  in  Shake- 
speare's plays  it  was  subdued  to  the  harmony  of  an  art  beyond 
Donne:  it  lies  concealed  in  that  immense  charity  as  in  the 
normal  life  of  human  society. 

There  are  many  modern  poets  who  cannot  be  read  without 
a  recollection  of  Donne:  Browning  for  example,  and  Meredith; 
and  of  the  later  generation  Rupert  Brooke,  who  felt  himself  to 
be  not  merely  Donne's  disciple  but  a  reincarnation  of  his  spirit. 


24  THOMAS  DEKKER  [1610 

Donne  began  to  publish  prose  in  1610,  and  verse  in  1611 
(An  Anatomy  of  the  World),  but  the  bulk  of  his  poems  were 
only  printed  after  his  death. 

1610.   Thomas  Dekker  (1575-1641) 

v     '  '  •*  PAGE 

Sweet  Content 283 

The  full  muster  of  the  English  dramatists  could  only  be 
represented  by  a  series  of  lengthy  extracts,  which  would  alone 
suffice  for  a  separate  anthology.  Dekker  is  among  those  whose 
plays  must  here  be  passed  over ;  but  his  songs  are  good  enough 
to  keep  his  name  in  remembrance,  even  beside  those  of  Shake- 
speare and  Fletcher.  Little  is  known  of  his  life,  though  he  col- 
laborated with  Ford,  Massinger,  and  others ;  but  his  work  was 
all  done  by  1610. 

1 6 io.  Giles  Fletcher  (158^-1623) 

Christ's  Triumph  after  Death  ....     284 

GILES  FLETCHER  (the  Younger),  son  of  Giles  the  author  of 
the  sonnet-sequence  Licia,  was  a  follower  of  Spenser,  but  with  a 
special  intensity  and  magnificence  of  his  own.  His  metaphysical 
passages  match  Donne's:  compare  his  conception  of  a  timeless 
spiritual  existence  in  these  pages,  with  the  last  ten  lines  from 
the  Anatomy  of  the  World  on  the  page  before  (English  Anthology, 
pp.  284-5  with  p.  283).  Christ's  Victory  was  published  in  1610. 

1611.  Authorised  Version  of  the  Bible 

II.  Samuel  xvm.  24 .       .         .         .  .     286 

Isaiah  xxxv.  and  LX.  10  to  end  ....     287 

After  "  Coverdale's  Bible  "  (1535)  came  the  "  Matthew  Bible  " 
(1537)  by  Tyndale  and  Coverdale,  the  "  Great  Bible  "  or  "  Cran- 
mer's  Bible"  (1539),  the  "Genevan  Bible,"  a  Puritan  revision 
(i 558),  and  the  "  Bishops'  Bible  "  (i 568).  Finally  a  new  translation 
to  secure  uniformity  was  proposed  in  1604  by  Dr.  John  Reynolds, 
President  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford,  and  the  king  gave 
his  immediate  support.  The  work  was  carried  out  by  forty-six 
scholars  and  divines,  among  whom  were  prominent  Dr.  Reynolds 
himself,  Dr.  John  Spenser,  his  successor  as  President  of  Corpus, 
and  Dr.  Miles  Smith,  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  sometime  member 
of  the  same  college  (as  was  also  Daniel  Fairclough,  another  of 
the  Oxford  committee).  Of  these,  Dr.  Spenser  had  edited  and 


1613]  JOHN  FLETCHER  25 

prefaced  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  and  Dr.  Smith  wrote 
the  Dedication  and  Preface  to  the  "  Authorised  Version  "  itself, 
when  it  appeared  in  1611. 

In  this  he  reminds  his  Most  dread  Sovereign  "  how  convenient 
it  was,  that  out  of  the  Original  Sacred  Tongues,  together  with 
comparing  of  the  laboures  ...  of  many  worthy  men  who  went 
before  us,  there  should  be  one  more  exact  translation  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures  into  the  English  Tongue"  The  work  of  Wyclif, 
Coverdale,  and  the  Bishops  was  in  fact  visible  and  audible  to 
the  Revisers  as  they  sat  at  Oxford,  Cambridge  and  Westminster ; 
and  it  is,  no  doubt,  owing  to  this  cause  that  the  language  and 
rhythms  of  the  Bible  as  we  know  it  are  in  accord  not  with  the 
speech  or  taste  of  any  one  generation  only,  but  with  the  essential 
underlying  character  and  genius  of  the  nation.  It  is  probable 
that  no  book  has  ever  so  profoundly  influenced  the  life  and 
literature  of  a  whole  race. 

1612.  Francis  Beaumont  (1586-1616)  and  John 

Fletcher  (1579-1625) 

A  Burlesque  of  1612  (The  Knight  of  the  Burning 

Pestle) 289 

BEAUMONT  was  a  friend  and  disciple  of  Ben  Jonson;  JOHN 
FLETCHER,  his  dramatic  colleague,  was  nephew  to  Giles  Fletcher 
the  Elder,  and  cousin  to  the  Giles  last  above  mentioned.  Their 
plays  have  many  fine  passages  and  some  well-grounded  plots; 
but  the  situations  are  often  worked  up  with  morbid  sentiment 
and  an  excessive  grossness.  There  is  not  enough  common 
human  nature  in  them  to  ensure  them  any  real  survival;  but 
they  still  interest  the  antiquarians  of  the  stage.  On  the  other 
hand  the  writers — or  one  of  them — had  an  admirable  sense  of 
humour,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  piece  of  self -parody  here  extracted. 
The  Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle  (1612)  remains  delightfully 
amusing  to  this  day.  It  owes  much  to  Cervantes,  whose  Don 
Quixote  had  just  been  translated  into  English  by  Shelton. 

1613.  John  Fletcher  (1579-1625) 

Aspatia's  Song         ......     292 

Hear,  ye  Ladies       ......     292 

Melancholy 293 

Of  JOHN  FLETCHER'S  songs  it  is  enough  to  say  that  some  of 
them  have  been  ascribed  to  Shakespeare,  and  that  one  at  least 


26  SAMUEL  PURCHAS  [1613 

appears  in  Twelfth  Night.     Those  who  read  Beddoes  (English 
Anthology,  p.  738)  hear  the  last  echo  of  this  music. 


PAGE 


1613,    Samuel  Purchas  (1575  ^-1626) 

In    Xanadu    did    Kubla    Khan    (Purchas    His 

Pilgrimes)         ......     294 

PURCHAS  continued  the  vast  work  of  Hakluyt,  with  somewhat 
less  distinction.  The  passage  here  given,  and  another  in  the 
same  pages,  suggested  to  Coleridge  the  famous  fragmentary 
poem  Kubla  Khan  (English  Anthology,  pp.  631-2).  Purchas 
His  Pilgrimes  appeared  in  1613. 

1613-16,    William  Browne,  of  Tavistock  (1588- 
1643) 

Song 295 

On  the  Countess  Dowager  of  Pembroke     .         .     295 

This  famous  Epitaph,  long  believed  to  be  Ben  Jonson's,  is 
now  generally  admitted  to  be  by  Browne.  Professor  Saintsbury, 
however,  maintains  that  this  "  is  entirely  refuted  by  internal 
evidence."  The  same  kind  of  evidence  leads  to  the  conjecture 
that  Keats  was  familiar  with  Browne's  longer  works.  The  date 
1613  is  that  of  the  first  appearance  of  Britannia's  Pastorals. 

1615.  George  Wither  (1588-1667) 

The  Lover's  Resolution   .  296 

This  much  praised  and  much  imitated  poem  is  said  to  have 
been  written  in  the  Marshalsea  prison,  to  which  Wither  was 
committed  in  1613  for  publishing  his  satire  Abuses  Stript  and 
Whipt.  In  the  Civil  War  he  took  the  side  of  the  Parliament, 
and  at  the  Restoration  his  verse  fell,  under  the  condemnation  of 
Dryden,  into  undeserved  but  long-lasting  contempt. 

1616.  George  Chapman  (1559-16340 

The  Spirit  of  Homer        ,  297 

The  Camp  at  Night 298 

CHAPMAN  as  a  dramatist  was  contemporary  with  Shakespeare: 
but  his  translation  of  Homer  was  not  completed  till  1616.  The 


1623]  WILLIAM   DRUMMOND  27 

plays  helped  Dryden  to  some  of  his  bombast :  the  Homer  inspired 
Keats  and  drew  from  him  a  splendid  sonnet.  The  passage  from 
the  Iliad  VIII.  here  given  may  be  compared  with  Tennyson's 
version  of  the  same  lines,  which  stands  evidently  in  the  same 
relation  to  Chapman's  work  as  some  of  Turner's  pictures 
to  Claude's. 

1621.    Robert  Burton  (1577-1640) 

V     J  '  '  PAGE 

The  Potion  of  Love  (Anatomy  of  Melancholy)    .     299 

Humour  is  largely  represented  in  this  English  Anthology — 
as  it  ought  to  be.  It  may  be  said  to  be  of  five  kinds.  The  first  is 
that  which  is  naturally  incidental  to  any  study  of  English  social 
life:  it  is  common  to  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,  his  Troiltu 
and  Criseyde,  and  many  of  the  great  novels,  such  as  Tom  Jones 
and  Tristram  Shandy.  Near  to  this  is  the  more  pointed  satirical 
humour  in  Richard  the  Redcless,  Gossip  Mine,  Every  Man  in  his 
Humour,  Hudibras,  The  Way  of  the  World,  Gulliver's  Travels, 
Addison's  Essays,  The  Rape  of  the  Lock,  Berkeley's  Essays  and 
passages  like  "  The  Dinner  Party  "  in  Cowper's  poems.  De- 
liberate, or  instinctive,  humour  for  its  own  sake  is  exemplified 
in  Henryson's  Robin  and  Makyne,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle,  Suckling's  poems,  Gay's  Quid- 
nunkies,  Sheridan's  Rivals,  Dickens's  Pickwick  Papers,  and 
Meredith's  Egoist.  Simpler  and  more  rollicking  is  the  mood 
of  The  Pilgrims'  Sea  Voyage  and  Saylors  for  my  Money.  The 
fifth  and  most  literary  is  the  learned  and  whimsical  humour 
of  the  connoisseur  in  human  life.  The  earliest  in  this  kind  is 
Robert  Burton;  an  occasional  outburst  in  his  letters  brings 
Gray  into  the  same  class;  and  Lamb  and  Peacock  are  brilliant 
and  accomplished  members  of  it.  But  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy 
(1621)  has  given  life  to  many  more  than  can  be  here  enumerated. 

1623.    William    Drummond    of    Hawthornden 
(1585-1649) 

On  Death  (The  Cypress  Grove)  .         .         .     301 

DRUMMOND  wrote  imitative  verse  with  occasional  grace  but 
more  frequent  stiffness.  His  prose  is  equally  deliberate  but 
much  more  successful:  it  might  be  described  as  the  Euphuism 
of  a  more  serious  age,  and  it  leads  on  to  the  far  greater 
achievement  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  The  Cypress  Grove  was 
published  in  1623. 


28  JOHN   WEBSTER  [1623 

1623.   John  Webster  ($'-1630$') 

PAGE 

The  Duchess  of  Malfi  (1618)    ,         .         *         .     303 

WEBSTER  was  a  great  poet  and  might  possibly  have  been  a 
great  dramatist.  If  only  certain  fragments  of  his  two  most 
famous  plays  had  survived,  we  should  have  placed  him  with 
Shakespeare  and  no  other.  As  it  is,  his  reputation  has  long 
outlasted  his  influence.  The  poignant  and  dazzling  beauty 
of  his  Lines  is  beyond  all  learning;  and  no  one  but  Tourneur 
attempted  to  follow  him  to  the  extreme  of  inhuman  cruelty  and 
piled-up  horror.  Even  in  The  Duchess  of  Malfi  (1623)  upon 
which  his  fame  now  rests,  he  forces  his  wonderful  imagination 
to  a  complete  break-down,  attempting  unnatural  means  and 
failing  doubly  to  achieve  the  end  of  tragedy. 


1624.    Sir  Henry  Wotton  (1568-1639) 

Elizabeth  of  Bohemia  .         .  308 

The  Character  of  a  Happy  Life          .         .         .     308 

WOTTON  was  an  accomplished  gentleman  whose  verse  lives 
not  so  much  by  its  poetical  quality  as  by  the  charm  and  wit 
of  its  author  expressed  in  forms  of  a  classical  tradition.  The 
Character  of  a  Happy  Life  descends  from  Martial,  through 
Surrey's  poem  on  the  same  theme  (English  Anthology,  p.  121), 
and  the  Line  is  not  yet  extinct.  Written  in  looser  verse,  Wotton's 
reflections  and  compliments  would  probably  have  been  for- 
gotten in  a  month.  In  1624  he  retired  from  diplomacy  to  the 
Provostship  of  Eton,  and  his  Literary  influence  is  dated  from 
this  period. 


1625.    Francis  Quarles  (1592-1644) 

A  Meditation  on  Job  (Job  Militant)   .         .         .     309 

QUARLES  wrote  voluminously,  and  his  Emblems  (1634)  had  an 
immense  success;  but  his  popularity  begins  with  his  Sion's 
Sonnets  in  1625.  Coleridge  read  him  with  care,  and  the  marginal 
annotations  in  his  own  copy  show  that  he  found  life  in  him. 


1629]  JOHN   MILTON  (I.)  39 

1627.    Phineas  Fletcher  (1580-1650) 

PAGE 

The  Great  Consult  of  Satan  and  his  Peers  .     310 

PHINEAS  FLETCHER  was  the  elder  brother  of  the  author  of 
Christ's  Victory  (ante),  but  as  a  poet  he  came  out  considerably 
later  (1627).  His  poems,  like  his  brother's,  were  of  the  Spenserian 
family,  and  known  to  Milton.  More  than  this:  it  is  plain  that 
the  passage  here  given  from  The  Apollyonists  contains  the  sugges- 
tion, and  in  some  degree  the  inspiration,  of  the  Satan  of  Paradise 
Lost.  Scene,  character,  style  and  phrase  form  so  obvious  a 
parallel  that  if  Fletcher's  work  had  been  published  in  1672 
instead  of  1627  it  would  have  been  marked  as  a  plagiarism. 

1629.    John  Milton  (I.)  (1608-74) 

Hymn  on  the  Morning  of  Christ's  Nativity          .     313 

L/Allegro 319 

II  Penseroso  .......     323 

MILTON'S  first  period  dates  from  the  Ode  on  the  Nativity, 
written  in  1629,  when  he  was  twenty-one.  His  early  work, 
Latin  and  English  verse,  shows  him  as  "  a  gentle  and  sociable 
youth,  a  lover  of  music,  gaiety,  women,  books,  plays,  and 
country  pleasures:  at  the  same  time  studious,  religious,  and 
high-minded:  a  temperament  exceptionally  happy."  Then 
suddenly  comes  the  great  Ode,  full  of  the  natural  magic  "  which 
takes  common  words  and  in  some  way  beyond  explanation 
makes  of  them  a  strange  and  memorable  picture,  a  strange  and 
haunting  melody."  Milton's  own  account  of  the  writing  of 
this  poem  is  given  in  a  Latin  Elegy  addressed  by  way  of  letter 
to  his  friend  Diodati.  After  a  playful  passage  on  the  connection 
of  poetry  with  drinking,  music,  dancing  and  ladies'  eyes,  he 
tells  of  his  new  Ode,  and  gives  the  substance  of  it,  compressed 
into  three  couplets  made  up  of  phrases  whose  English  equivalents 
are  easily  recognisable. 

L' ALLEGRO  and  IL  PENSEROSO  are  of  the  same  period,  written 
shortly  after  Milton  left  Cambridge  (1632)  and  while  he  was 
living  in  his  father's  country  house  at  Horton  in  Buckinghamshire. 
They,  too,  show  clearly  that  he  was  by  birth  far  from  Puritanism : 
his  sense  of  beauty  and  his  religious  instinct  were  naturally  at 
one;  his  mind  had  as  yet  no  bitter  or  self-righteous  habit. 


30  FULKE   GREVILLE  [1633 

1633,    Fulke  Greville,  Lord  Brooke  (1554-1628) 

PAGE 

Myra 328 

Caelica,  ex.    .......     329 

FULKE  GREVILLE  was  born  in  the  same  year  as  Philip  Sidney 
and  may  have  written  his  sonnets  and  songs  as  early ;  but  they 
were  not  published  till  1633,  nve  years  after  his  own  death,  and 
more  than  forty  years  after  Astrophel  and  Stella  first  became 
famous.  Greville's  principal  part  during  his  life  was  that  of  a 
diplomatist,  state  official  and  wealthy  peer;  but  he  survives 
as  the  intimate  friend,  fellow  poet,  and  biographer  of  Sidney. 


1633.    George  Herbert  (1593-1632) 

Virtue    .         .         .         .         ,         .         *         .     330 
The  Pulley     .         .         ,         «         .         .         .     330 

GEORGE  HERBERT  died  at  39,  and  his  poems  were  published 
in  the  following  year  (1633).  His  influence  has  been  great  and 
lasting,  but  most  of  his  followers  (Keble  the  best  of  them)  have 
resembled  him  rather  in  piety  than  in  originality. 


1633.    John  Ford  (1586-1639) 

The  Broken  Heart  .         .         .         .         .     331 

FORD  is  admitted  to  be  the  best  of  the  Jacobean  dramatists, 
and  The  Broken  Heart  (1633),  one  of  his  two  best  plays,  has 
been  revived  for  a  few  nights  within  living  memory.  But  it  is 
no  longer  easy  to  find  an  audience  for  plays  whose  strongest 
situations  are  obviously  impossible  ones.  The  climax  of  The 
Broken  Heart,  here  given,  is  not  merely  imitation  but  a  parody 
of  drama :  and  the  would-be  great  emotional  scene  in  which  the 
heroine,  smitten  by  successive  messages  of  disaster,  calmly  goes 
on  with  her  ceremonial  dance,  is,  when  compared  with  genuine 
tragedy,  an  equally  hollow  show.  For  the  sake  of  such  an 
effect  Ford  will  sacrifice  the  breadth  of  view,  sanity,  and  truth 
to  human  nature,  which  give  dramatic  fitness  and  a  lasting 
power  over  the  emotions. 


1640]  THOMAS   CAREW  31 

1635.    Martin  Parker  (c.  1635) 

PAGE 

Saylors  for  my  Money      .         .         .         .         •     335 

This  splendid  song  has  reappeared  in  many  versions  or 
adaptations,  of  which  the  one  beginning  "  Ye  Gentlemen  of 
England  "  was  the  best  known  until  eclipsed  by  Campbell's 
"  Ye  Mariners  of  England  " — a  daring  but  entirely  justifiable 
transformation.  But  the  original  remains  the  best — genius  blows 
through  it  in  a  gale  without  a  lull. 

For  the  date  1635  see  Sir  Charles  Firth's  Naval  Songs  and 
Ballads. 

1637,  Sir  William  Davenant  (1606-68) 
Aubade          .......     337 

DAVENANT  was  a  Royalist  poet  and  playwright  who  succeeded 
Ben  Jonson  as  Laureate  (1637),  was  rescued  from  Puritans  in 
the  Civil  War  by  Milton  and  was  later  a  friend  of  Dryden.  He 
survives  in  this  one  song  of  the  courtly  tradition. 

1638.  Sir  John  Suckling  (1609-42) 

Why  so  Pale  and  Wan?" 338 

SUCKLING  was  a  Cavalier  poet  with  the  traditional  charm; 
but  to  this  was  added  a  gift  of  unusually  exquisite  humour. 
His  collected  poems  and  plays  were  published  after  his  death, 
but  in  1638  appeared  Aglaura,  from  which  the  song  "  Why  so 
pale  and  wan,  fond  lover  f*  "  is  taken. 

1640.    Thomas  Carew  (1595^-1639$') 

Song 338 

CAREW  wrote  a  masque  under  the  influence  of  Ben  Jonson 
(1634),  but  his  poems  were  not  published  till  (1640)  after  his 
death.  Seven  or  eight  of  them  are  of  the  finest  poetry  of  his 
age ;  "  Ask  me  no  more  "  is  one  of  those  magical  pieces  of 
supremely  artful  simplicity  where,  as  in  Shakespeare's  "  Fear 
no  more  the  heat  of  the  sun,"  the  sound  and  not  the  sense 
appears  to  give  the  meaning. 


32  SIR   THOMAS  BROWNE  [1643 

1642.    Sir  Thomas  Browne  (1605-82) 

PAGE 

On  Happiness  (Christian  Morals,  Part  III.)  .  339 

On  Revenge  (Christian  Morals,  Part  III.)   .  .  340 

On  Futurity  (Christian  Morals,  Part  III.)    .  .  341 

On  Spirituals  (Christian  Morals,  Part  III.) .  .  343 

On  Vision  (Christian  Morals,  Part  III.)       .  .  343 

SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE'S  influence  dates  from  the  publication  of 
his  first  and  most  popular  book,  Religio  Medici,  in  1642:  the 
Christian  Morals  was  written  later,  perhaps  not  finally  revised, 
and  only  published  (1716)  long  after  his  death.  But  if  it  lacks 
anything  of  the  grave  humour,  the  continually  surprising  quaint- 
ness  and  exquisitely  carven  phrasing  of  the  Religio,  it  gains  by 
a  more  evident  sincerity,  and  its  philosophy  is  not  less  profound 
for  being  more  easily  intelligible. 

1644*   John  Milton  (IL)  (1608-74) 

Good  and  Evil  in  Books  (Areopagitica)       .         .  344 
The  Preparation  of  Paradise  Lost  (The  Reason  of 

Church-Government  urg'd  against  Prelaty)     .  346 

The  Retort  Courteous  (Colasterion)    .         .         .  347 

MILTON  in  his  second  period  was  an  entirely  changed  man. 
The  young  and  happy  poet,  the  courtly  gentleman  and  aesthetic 
churchman  had  disappeared,  and  in  his  place  there  had  entered 
a  strenuous  and  almost  lawless  controversialist,  a  Parliamentarian, 
and  official  of  the  Commonwealth.  He  wrote  in  prose — loftily 
and  sonorously  for  Liberty  of  Unlicens'd  Printing  (Areopagitica, 
1644),  furiously  and  scurrilously  for  Freedom  of  Divorce  (English 
Anthology,  pp.  344,  347).  How  far  the  transformation  had  gone 
is  shown  even  more  strikingly  by  a  passage  in  the  tract  "  against 
Prelaty."  There,  between  fierce  strokes  at  the  "  inquisitorious 
and  tyrannical  duncery  "  of  bishops,  and  the  writing  of  the 
"  vulgar  Amorist  "  or  "  riming  Parasite  "  of  the  Royalist  party, 
he  thrusts  in  an  autobiographical  paragraph  of  the  greatest 
interest  (English  Anthology,  p.  346),  a  kind  of  prospectus  of 
Paradise  Lost,  not  free  from  ostentation  and  self-consciousness 
even  in  its  eloquent  piety ;  but  when  we  remember  the  chances 
of  the  time  and  the  eventual  issue,  one  of  the  highest  challenges 
ever  thrown  down  to  human  fate. 


1647]  ABRAHAM   COWLEY  33 

1645.  Edmund  Waller  (1606-87) 

T'  PAGE 

On  a  Girdle   .......     349 

Go,  lovely  Rose       ......     349 

WALLER  was  neither  a  great  man  nor  a  great  poet,  but  these 
two  pieces  the  English  world  has  not  been  willing  to  let  die. 
The  first  edition  of  his  poems  is  dated  1645. 

1646.  James  Shirley  (1596-1666) 

Death  the  Leveller  .         .         .         .         .     350 

SHIRLEY  is  the  last  poet  who  was  an  Elizabethan  born.  For 
forty  years  he  wrote  plays  which  have  long  been  mere  names, 
and  he  lived  to  be  called  dull  by  Dryden  after  the  Restoration. 
But  he  wrote  this  one  poem  which  has  never  faded. 

His  collected  poems  appeared  in  1646. 

1646.  Richard  Crashaw  (1613 ^-49) 

Verses  from  the  Shepherds'  Hymn    .         .         .     351 

CRASHAW,  the  son  of  a  Puritan  clergyman,  is  one  of  the  few 
English  poets  in  the  last  four  centuries  who  have  belonged  to  the 
unreformed  religion.  (See  note  on  the  Coverdale  Bible,  1535.) 
He  is  more  definitely  inspired  at  one  moment  and  uninspired  at 
another,  than  any  writer  in  our  collection.  He  has  a  music  and 
an  intensity  of  religious  imagination  which  have  given  him  an 
immense  influence ;  but  a  considerable  part  of  his  verse  has  long 
since  died  stifled  by  its  own  tawdry  verbiage. 

His  Steps  to  the  Temple  and  Delights  of  the  Muses  appeared 
in  one  volume,  in  1646. 

1647.  Abraham  Cowley  (1618-67) 

The  Garden  ......     353 

The  Wish 354 

Anacreontic — Drinking    .         .         .         .         •     355 

COWLEY  was  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  great  ability  and  personal 

charm:  a  prosaic  age  mistook  him  early  in  his  career  for  a  great 

poet.    His  fame  dates  from  1647  when  he  published  the  lyrical 

collection  called  The  Mistress :  or  Several  Copies  of  Love  Verses. 

C 


34  ROBERT   HERRICK  [1648 

Passion  is  wholly  absent  from  them,  but  there  are  some  pleasing 
pieces,  of  which  The  Wish  is  perhaps  the  best.  It  is  either  the 
source  or  the  amplification  of  a  phrase  in  a  letter  of  his  own, 
also  quoted  here.  Cowley's  prose,  especially  that  in  his  Essays 
(1668),  is  better  than  his  verse ;  but  it  was  to  his  verse  that  he 
owed  his  influence.  His  celebrated  Pindaric  Odes  introduced 
a  fashion  which  for  fifty  years  afterwards  led  his  followers  away 
from  sincerity  of  expression.  But  they  also  made  possible  some 
of  the  finest  work  of  Dryden,  Gray,  Collins,  Wordsworth, 
Shelley  and  Tennyson. 

It  has  sometimes  been  thought  that  Milton  may  have  taken 
a  suggestion  for  his  Great  Consult  in  Hell  from  the  opening  of 
Cowley's  Davideis,  a  sacred  epic  written  for  the  most  part  while 
Cowley  was  "  a  young  student  at  Cambridge,"  and  therefore 
some  years  before  Milton's  "  prospectus "  of  Paradise  Lost 
(see  above  under  date  1644).  But  the  resemblance  is  slight; 
and  Milton,  who  was  the  elder  by  ten  years,  was  probably 
familiar  long  before  this  with  Phineas  Fletcher's  much  more 
congenial  poem  (see  above,  1627).  The  real  interest  of  the 
Davideis  lies  in  its  use  of  rhymed  couplets,  often  pithy  but  more 
often  grotesquely  absurd,  which  point  with  startling  directness 
to  the  flattest  levels  of  the  school  of  Dryden,  many  years  ahead. 


PAGE 


1648*   Robert  Herrick  (1591-1674) 

The  Night-Piece:  To  Julia       .         .         .         .  356 

Corinna's  Going  a-Maying        .         .         .         •  357 

To  the  Virgins,  to  make  much  of  Time      *         •  359 

To  Violets      .......  359 

To  Daffodils  .......  360 

To  Anthea,  who  may  command  him  Anything    .  360 

To  Meadows  ......  361 

Epitaph          .......  362 

Litany  to  the  Holy  Spirit          ....  362 

HERRICK  was  two  men,  of  whom  only  one  has  survived. 
The  one  who  died  was  an  imitator  of  Martial  in  his  trivial  and 
coarse  vein,  and  of  Ben  Jonson  at  his  offensive  moments. 
The  other,  the  Herrick  of  the  Noble  Numbers  and  the  Hesperides 
(1648),  has  a  place  by  himself  in  English  literature,  as  the  writer 
of  the  largest  collection  of  the  most  exquisite  poems.  Of  these 
some  have,  like  Campion's  best,  a  peculiar  "  singable  "  quality^ 


1650]  EDWARD   HYDE  35 

and  v/erc  perfectly  set  by  Henry  Lawes  and  others ;  but  the  most 
of  them  have  the  music  of  poetry,  a  music  which  belongs  to 
themselves  and  is  "  the  sound  of  the  meaning  "  and  not  suggestive 
of  any  singing  voice  or  instrument. 

Like  Carew,  the  only  poet  with  whom  he  can  be  grouped, 
Herrick  suffered  a  long  eclipse  behind  the  clouds  of  political 
disturbance.  His  reputation  only  shone  out  again  two  centuries 
afterwards,  and  may  possibly,  in  an  age  of  even  greater  chaos, 
survive  to  correct  current  misunderstandings  of  the  meaning  of 
form  in  art. 


PAGE 


1649.  Sir  Richard  Lovelace  (1618-58) 

To  Lucasta,  going  to  the  Wars  .         .         .     364 

To  Lucasta,  going  beyond  the  Seas   .         .         .     364 
To  Althea,  from  Prison    .....     365 

LOVELACE,  the  typical  Cavalier  poet,  published  his  volume, 
Lucasta,  in  1649.  His  best  poems,  like  the  man  himself,  were 
to  his  own  time  "  incomparably  graceful,"  and  English  chivalry, 
"  going  to  the  wars  "  has  ever  since  gone  in  the  remembrance 
of  them. 

1650.  Henry  Vaughan  (1621-95) 

The  Retreat   .......     366 

Friends  Departed    ......     367 

VAUGHAN  "  the  Silurist "  (South  Welshman)  published  his 
volume  Silex  Scintillans  in  1650,  Olor  Iscanus  in  1651.  He  was 
a  confessed  follower  of  George  Herbert,  whom  he  far  surpasses 
(when  at  his  best)  in  depth  of  thought  and  feeling,  as  well  as 
in  intensity  of  expression. 

1650.    Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of  Clarendon  (1608- 

1674) 
Cromwell  (History  of  the  Rebellion)    .         .         .     368 

CLARENDON'S  History  of  the  Great  Rebellion  was  not  pub- 
lished till  1704,  when  he  had  been  dead  thirty  years.  But  the 
book  was  begun  in  1646  and  is  a  political  record:  his  influence 
may  well  be  dated  from  1650,  when  the  death  of  Charles  I. 
had  left  him  in  the  position  of  chief  minister  of  the  Royalist 
party  in  exile.  His  History  is  lengthy  and  untidily  written,  but 
vivid  and  well  conceived ;  as  a  gallery  of  contemporary  portraits 


36  THOMAS  HOBBES  [1652 

it  is  unsurpassed;  and  this  of  Cromwell  is  perhaps  the  best. 
The  frank  partisanship  of  the  last  sentence  only  sets  off  the 
"  wonderful  civility,  generosity  and  bounty  "  of  the  whole  picture. 

1652*   Thomas  Hobbes  (1588-1679) 

v     -*  PAGE 

Of  Common-wealth         .         .         .         .         .     371 

HOBBES  was  actually  the  last  of  the  Elizabethans:  he  was 
born  in  the  year  of  the  Armada  (1588)  and  died  in  1679.  His 
masterpiece,  the  famous  Leviathan,  did  not  appear  till  1652, 
when  he  was  already  64,  and  had  wasted  time  on  mathematical 
books  of  no  repute,  and  a  verse  translation  of  Homer.  His 
style  is  reminiscent  of  the  prose  of  Bacon  and  Ben  Jonson;  but 
its  combined  vitality,  clearness,  and  rigid  terseness  are  his  own 
contribution  to  scientific  literature  and  have  had  a  lasting  effect. 

1652*   Andrew  Marvell  (1621-78) 

Thoughts  in  a  Garden     .....     375 
To  his  Coy  Mistress        .....     377 

MARVELL'S  living  poems  were  nearly  all  written  between  1650 
and  1652.  Up  to  this  time  he  had  been  a  friend  of  Lovelace 
and  an  admirer  of  Charles  I.  In  1653  he  was  proposed  by  Milton 
as  his  coadjutor  in  the  Latin  Secretaryship  to  the  Common- 
wealth, and  the  appointment  was  made  in  1657.  He  followed 
Milton  in  becoming  a  fierce  politician;  sat  in  the  Roundhead 
Parliament,  and  held  his  seat  after  the  Restoration,  as  a  member  of 
the  Opposition.  His  very  beautiful  poems  range  from  the  Cavalier 
piece  "  To  his  Coy  Mistress  "  to  the  Puritan  "  Bermudas,"  and 
are  thereby  peculiarly  characteristic  of  the  "  two-mindedness  " 
of  the  modern  Englishman. 

1654.   Sir  William  Temple  (1628-99) 

National  Genius,  Poetry  and  Music  .         .         .     379 

1654.    Dorothy  Osborne    (married    1654,   died 

1695) 
To  Sir  William  Temple  .....     381 

TEMPLE,  of  a  Parliamentarian  family,  fell  in  love  in  1647  with 
Dorothy  Osborne,  daughter  of  the  Royalist  Governor  of  Guern- 
sey, and  married  her  in  1654  after  bitter  opposition.  His  letters 


1657]  RICHARD  BAXTER  37 

and  essays  are  a  distinguished  influence  in  English  life,  and  though 
they  were  not  published  till  long  after  his  death  their  effect  was 
felt  much  earlier.  He  had  a  great  position  as  confidential  adviser 
to  William  III.,  and  Swift  and  Esther  Johnson  (Stella)  were 
both  inmates  of  his  house. 

DOROTHY  OSBORNE  lives  by  the  charm  of  her  letters,  and 
one  of  the  most  delightful  of  them,  written  not  long  before  her 
marriage,  is  here  placed  side  by  side  with  her  lover's  most  famous 
pages,  though  the  actual  date  of  the  latter  is  not  ascertainable. 

1656.    Jeremy  Taylor  (1613-67)  PAGE 

On  Women  as  Friends  (A  Discourse  of  Friendship)    383 

JEREMY  TAYLOR  was  during  his  most  fertile  period  a  Royalist 
living  alternately  in  a  Parliament  prison  and  in  retirement  in 
Wales  under  the  protection  of  the  Earl  of  Carbery.  His  influence 
may  be  supposed  to  have  reached  its  full  force  by  1656,  by  which 
time  he  had  published  his  Liberty  of  Prophesying,  Holy  Living, 
Holy  Dying,  and  A  Discourse  of  Friendship  (1656),  and  could 
venture  to  return  to  a  London  congregation.  He  was  a  splendid 
orator,  often  too  full  of  fancy  to  please  his  contemporaries;  but 
his  mind  was  simple  and  gentle,  and  he  had  the  great  merit  of 
being  "  the  earliest  great  divine  to  free  himself  completely  from 
the  subtleties  and  spinosities  of  the  Schools  "  (Gosse), 

1656.  Thomas  Fuller  (1608-61) 

Seamen  (The  Worthies  of  England)     .         .         .     386 

FULLER'S  huge  Church  History  of  Britain  (1656)  is  his  greatest 
work;  but  The  Worthies  of  England,  published  after  his  death, 
is  equally  voluminous  and  perhaps  even  more  characteristic  of 
him.  He  was  a  great  Englishman,  and  loved  his  country's  earth 
almost  as  much  as  her  people  and  her  fame. 

1657.  Richard  Baxter  (1615-91) 

England's  Mercies  (The  Saint's  Everlasting  Rest)    387 

BAXTER  was  a  non-conforming  clergyman,  persecuted  by 
Charles  II.  and  James  II.,  and  insulted  by  Judge  Jeffreys.  His 
Saint's  Everlasting  Rest  (1650)  and  Call  to  the  Unconverted 
(1657)  have  had  an  immense  influence  on  many  generations, 
and  were  textbooks  of  the  great  Evangelical  revival  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 


38  HENRY  KING  [1657 

1657.    Henry  King,  Bishop  of  Chichester  (1592- 
1669) 

y/  PAGE 

A  Renunciation       .         .         .  »         .     389 

BISHOP  KING  was,  like  Hobbes,  a  late  Elizabethan  but  died 
ten  years  before  him.  He  was  the  friend  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  of 
Donne  whose  poetical  disciple  he  was.  He  lacked  Donne's 
intensity  and  originality,  but  a  grave  and  tender  note  gives  him 
a  beauty  of  his  own.  It  is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  Tennyson 
when  he  wrote  his  Love  and  Duty  was  matching  his  own  art 
against  King's  Renunciation',  and  if  so  the  verdict  must  go  in 
favour  of  the  Cavalier  bishop.  King's  poems  were  published 
in  1657. 

1 660-70*   John  Wilmot,  Earl  of  Rochester  ( 1 648- 
1680) 

Return  .         ,         .      .  •«.        .,         ,         .         .     390 

ROCHESTER  was  the  type  of  all  that  was  worst  and  wittiest 
among  the  rakes  of  the  Revolution;  but  between  1660  and  1670 
he  wrote  a  few  excellent  songs,  of  which  Return  is  both  touching 
and  memorable. 

1663.  Samuel  Butler  (1612-80) 

The  Puritan  Knight  Errant  (Hudibras)       .         .     391 

In  1663  was  published  the  first  part  of  Hudibras,  Written  in 
the  Time  of  the  Late  Wars;  in  1664  the  second  part,  and  the 
conclusion  in  1678.  It  is  the  most  characteristically  English 
of  satires  and  perhaps  the  most  successful,  being  at  once  entirely 
personal  and  sincere,  and  entirely  representative  of  the  national 
feeling  of  reaction.  Its  modernity,  the  concentration  of  its 
scornful  energy,  and  the  inexhaustible  humour  of  its  rhymes 
and  rhythms,  are  more  than  enough  to  explain  its  immense 
popularity  and  lasting  fame. 

1664,  Samuel  Pepys  (1633-1703) 

Diary,  January  1663-4     .....     393 

PEPYS'  Diary  was  not  published  till  120  years  after  his  death; 
the  extract  here  given  is  placed  at  the  date  of  the  events  re- 
corded, as  a  historical  document  (like  The  Paston  Letters).  But 


1670]  THOMAS    TRAHERNE  39 

it  belongs  to  literature,  in  a  very  unusual  but  undeniable  fashion. 
The  writer  has  the  gift  of  confession  carried  to  the  point  of 
genius:  he  confesses  the  truth,  the  whole  truth  and  nothing 
but  the  truth — and  yet  not  objectively,  but  in  a  style  invariably 
marked  with  the  stamp  of  a  unique  personality. 

1665.    Izaak  Walton  (1593-1683) 

PAGE 

Mr.  Donne's  Vision  (Lives)  «         »     397 

WALTON'S  Compleat  Angler  was  printed  in  1653  and  revised 
in  1655 — a  book  of  "  infantile  grace  "  rather  than  of  conscious 
literary  art.  (Andrew  Lang  said  of  him  "  Heaven  meant  him  for 
the  place  he  fills,  as  it  meant  the  cowslip  and  the  mayfly.") 
But  his  real  influence  in  literature  dates  from  1665,  when  he 
began  publishing  his  famous  Lives — first  that  of  Richard  Hooker, 
and  afterwards  those  of  Donne,  George  Herbert  and  Sanderson, 
with  the  memoir  of  Wotton  already  printed  in  his  Reliquix 
Wottonianx  (1651). 

1668.    Sir  Charles  Sedley  (1639-1701) 

To  Celia         ..«,»..     399 

SEDLEY'S  literary  reputation  was  made  by  The  Mulberry 
Garden,  a  comedy,  in  1668,  but  he  is  remembered  for  two 
songs,  this  one  To  Celia  and  "  Phyllis  is  my  only  joy." 

1670*    Thomas  Traherne  (1636  ^-1674) 

The  Child's  Vision  of  the  World  (Centuries  of 

Meditations)     ......     400 

Wonder          .......     401 

TRAHERNE'S  poems  were  discovered  in  MS.  and  published  by 
Mr.  Bertram  Dobell  in  1903,  with  some  extracts  from  another 
MS.,  entitled  Centuries  of  Meditations.  The  poems  appear  to 
have  been  written  for  the  most  part  in  early  life,  and  the  Medita- 
tions between  1667  and  1674  when  Traherne  was  living  in  the 
house  of  Sir  Orlando  Bridgeman  as  chaplain;  publishing  his 
controversial  work  Roman  Forgeries,  and  preparing  his  Christian 
Ethicks  for  the  press.  The  approximate  date  1670  has  therefore 
been  assigned  to  him  here;  but  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  prose  extract  is  not  the  original  of  the  poem  Wonder  but  an 


40  JOHN  MILTON  (III.)  [1671 

expanded  version,  or  meditation  upon  it.    Both  the  prose  and 
verse  are  strongly  influenced  by  Vaughan. 

1671*   John  Milton  (IIL) 

PAGE 

The  Exiles  (Paradise  Lost,  Book  XII.)  .  ,  403 
Consolation  (Samson  Agonistes)  .  .  .  406 
On  his  Blindness  ......  407 

MILTON  began  to  write  Paradise  Lost  in  1657,  after  some  years 
of  preparation,  and  it  was  published  ten  years  later;  Paradise 
Regained  followed  in  1671.  This  date  marks,  no  doubt,  the 
completion  of  the  achievement  to  which  Fame  will  always 
point;  but  we  have  already  seen  that  Milton's  poetical  power 
was  supreme  from  his  early  youth.  The  influence  of  his  third 
period  has  been  greater  but  less  favourable:  his  Latinism 
threatened  to  petrify  the  diction  of  English  poetry.  Of  all 
his  successors  Robert  Bridges  alone  has  been  able  to  wear  the 
Miltonic  dignity  without  ill  coming  of  it.  Samson  Agonistes 
has  been  far  less  known,  but  is  perhaps  a  greater  poem  than 
Paradise  Lost.  It  has  been  read  lately  by  a  generation  smitten 
with  the  just  but  unhappy  anger  of  war,  and  desiring  at  one 
and  the  same  time  to  be,  like  the  blind  Giant,  "  on  his  enemies 
fully  revenged  "  and  to  have  "  peace  and  consolation  .  .  .  And 
calm  of  mind,  all  passion  spent." 

1678.   John  Bunyan  (1628-88) 

To  his  Reader  (The  Pilgrim's  Progress)  .  .  408 
The  Trial  of  Faithful  (The  Pilgrim's  Progress)  .  409 
The  Crossing  of  the  River  (The  Pilgrim's  Progress)  413 

BUNYAN,  the  third,  with  Langland  and  Spenser,  of  the  great 
English  allegorists,  published  his  Pilgrim's  Progress  (the  First 
Part)  in  1678.  It  has  been  said  to  owe  something  to  a  Pelerinage 
de  VAme  Hwnaine,  though  Bunyan  could  hardly  have  read  this. 
What  is  not  doubtful  is  that  he  had  read  the  Authorised  Version 
of  the  Bible  and  without  conscious  art  had  acquired  a  style 
familiar  and  dignified,  fit  to  express  his  extraordinary  sincerity, 
wit  and  insight.  His  verse  is  equally  a  wonder:  nothing  could 
be  better  than  his  preface  "  to  his  Reader  "  in  rhymed  couplets; 
and  his  Shepherd  Boy's  song  in  the  Valley  of  Humiliation  is 
a  hymn  as  perfect  as  the  finest  songs  of  the  Cavaliers. 


i688]  JOHN  EVELYN  41 

1681.   John  Dryden  (1631-1700) 

On  Chaucer   .......  418 

Zimri  (Absalom  and  Achitophel,  Part  I.)      .         .  425 

A  Song  for  St.  Cecilia's  Day     ....  426 

To  my  Friend,  Mr.  Congreve,  1693  .         .         .  428 

DRYDEN  was  50  when  he  published  in  November  1681  the 
first  part  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  followed  in  March  1682 
by  The  Medal,  in  October  by  Mac  Flecknoe,  and  in  November 
by  the  second  part  of  Absalom  and  Achitophel.  With  these 
brilliant  satires  his  fame  and  power  began.  In  1697  he  wrote 
his  great  ode  Alexander's  Feast,  and  in  1699  included  it  in  a 
volume  of  Fables  adapted  from  Chaucer  and  Boccaccio.  His 
critical  Essay  on  Chaucer  is  a  masterpiece  worthy  to  introduce 
The  Canterbury  Tales;  his  judgments  on  his  contemporaries 
are  quoted  to  this  day.  He  made  in  1664  a  famous  reference 
to  "  Shakespeare,  who,  with  some  errors  not  to  be  avoyded 
in  that  Age,  had  undoubtedly  a  larger  Soul  of  Poesie  than  ever 
any  of  our  Nation."  His  influence  in  the  world  of  his  time  was 
immense;  its  decay  and  the  obsolescence  of  most  of  his  work 
is  due  to  his  too  great  reliance  on  rhetoric,  and  to  his  prosaic 
outlook  and  preoccupation:  whether  this  was  forced  by  him 
on  his  age  or  by  the  age  on  him  is  matter  of  dispute. 

1685.    George     Savile,    Marquess    of    Halifax 

(1630-95) 
The  Trimmer  (Miscellanies)      ....     430 

HALIFAX  was  a  successful  politician  whose  literary  reputation 
rests  on  his  treatises,  the  most  celebrated  and  memorable  of 
which  is  The  Character  of  a  Trimmer,  written  and  circulated  in 
MS.  in  1684-5  afld  printed  anonymously  with  others  three 
years  afterwards. 

1688.    John  Evelyn  (1620-1706) 

Diary,  1688  ......     432 

EVELYN  was  thirteen  years  older  than  Pepys,  whom  he 
patronised,  but  he  had  not  a  tenth  part  of  his  influence  or  a 
hundredth  part  of  his  genius  and  subsequent  fame.  Here 
his  Diary,  like  that  of  Pepys,  is  treated  as  a  document  of  social 
history,  and  the  extract  from  it  is  placed  by  the  date  of  the 
events  which  it  records. 


42  JOHN  LOCKE  [1690 

1690.    John  Locke  (1632-1704) 

PAGE 

Of  the  Association  of  Ideas  (An  Essay  Concerning 

Human  Understanding)       »  434 

LOCKE'S  Essay  Concerning  Human  Understanding  appeared 
in  1690.  According  to  one  judge,  "  to  give  a  just  idea  of  the 
influence  of  Locke  it  would  be  necessary  to  write  the  history 
of  philosophy  from  his  time  to  our  own."  According  to  another, 
the  "  obstinate  Philistinism  of  thought  and  expression  "  which 
is  the  besetting  sin  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  due  to  him 
more  than  to  any  other.  He  remains  an  easy  and  agreeable 
writer. 

1700,   William  Congreve  (1670-1729) 

St.  James's  Park  in  1700  ( The  Way  of  the  World)    435 

CONGREVE — a  young  gentleman  of  23  befriended  by  Dryden 
— gained  his  first  success  with  his  play  The  Old  Bachelor  (1693), 
and  reached  the  height  of  his  literary  power  in  The  Way  of 
the  World  (1700),  though  it  was  at  the  moment  so  little  approved 
that  he  abandoned  the  stage.  It  is  a  world  of  almost  tragic 
imagination,  with  brilliant  pictures  from  the  "  real  world " 
inwoven.  For  Dryden's  estimate  see  above  (English  Anthology, 
p.  428). 

1705.    Isaac  Watts  (1674-1748) 

The  Day  of  Judgement  .     438 

WATTS  published  his  famous  hymns — Horse  Lyricx — in  1705, 
and  his  Psalms  of  David  in  1719. 

1709*    Sir  Richard  Steele  (1672-1729) 

Letters 440 

In  1707  STEELE,  who  had  failed  as  a  dramatist,  was  appointed 
by  Harley,  the  Tory  leader,  to  the  important  post  of  Gazetteer. 
In  the  same  year  he  married  his  "  Dear  Prue,"  a  beautiful 
Welsh  lady  of  some  property.  To  her  he  wrote  the  famous 
letters  of  which  a  selection  is  here  given :  letters  "  as  good 
as  a  play,"  acted  by  a  rebellious,  bibulous,  adoring  and  yielding 


i7n]  JOSEPH  ADDISON  43 

husband  and  the  "  tormenting  peevish  beauty  "  who  fought 
and  won  "  full  power  "  as  his  absolute  "  governor." 

In  1709  Steele  began  to  issue  The  Taller,  which  ran  till  1711 
and  was  succeeded  by  The  Spectator,  produced  in  alliance  with 
Addison;  The  Guardian  followed  in  1713.  In  1715  he  was 
knighted  and  .entered  the  House  of  Commons. 

1710.  Jonathan  Swift  (1667-1745) 

PAGE 

Journal  to  Stella,  1711  .         ,         .         .  444 

The   Brobdingnag  View   of  Europe   (Gulliver's 

Travels)  .         »         .         .         ....  447 

To  Mr.  Pope  »         .         .         .         ,         «  452 

Mr.  Gay  to  Dr.  Swift      .....  452 

In  1710  SWIFT,  who  had  first  been  secretary  to  Sir  William 
Temple,  then  "  hedge-parson  "  and  Whig  pamphleteer,  went  over 
to  the  Tories  and  was  very  favourably  received  by  Harley;  he 
made  his  reputation  immediately  in  the  Tory  Examiner  and  began 
in  1711  his  Journal  to  Stella.  The  Tale  of  a  Tub  had  been 
published  anonymously  in  1704,  and  Gulliver's  Travels  appeared 
in  1726.  Each  of  these  has  been  called  "  the  greatest  book  of 
the  century." 

The  simultaneous  letters  from  Swift  to  Pope  and  from  Gay 
to  Swift  show  the  method  of  concealment  practised  by  Swift 
upon  his  literary  intimates,  and  the  foredoomed  futility  of  it. 
Scott  with  Waverley  was  less  subtle  and  more  successful. 

1711.  Joseph  Addison  (1672-1719) 

Hymn 455 

The  Opera  (The  Spectator)       .         .         .         •     455 
Sir  Roger  and  Party  Spirit  (The  Spectator).         .     459 

In  1711  ADDISON,  who  had  helped  Steele  in  The  Taller,  joined 
him  in  founding  The  Spectator.  In  this  he  brought  to  perfection 
the  type  of  essay  originated  by  Steele.  "  Whoever  wishes  to 
attain  an  English  style,  familiar  but  not  coarse,  and  elegant 
but  not  ostentatious,  must  give  his  days  and  nights  to  the 
volumes  of  Addison  "  (Dr.  Johnson).  But  he  would  give  them 
in  vain  if  he  had  not  the  temper  of  the  man — Addison's  prose 
and  verse,  though  without  imagination,  are  the  expression  of 
an  exquisite  kindness  and  sincerity. 


44  ALEXANDER  POPE  [1712 

1712.  Alexander  Pope  (1688-1734) 

The  Rape  of  the  Lock  (First  Edition)         .         .  463 
To  H.  St.  John,  Lord  Bolingbroke  (Epistle  I.) 

(Essay  on  Man)         .  472 

To  Dr.  Swift 474 

To  a  Lady     .......  476 

To  Sir  Richard  Steele 477 

From  Sir  Richard  Steele 478 

To  Sir  Richard  Steele      .....  479 

THE  RAPE  OF  THE  LOCK  was  published  in  Lintot's  Miscellany 
(1712)  in  the  form  here  given:  two  years  later  it  reappeared 
with  the  addition  of  an  elaborate  machinery  of  gnomes  and 
sylphs.  As  to  the  effect  of  this  opinion  differs  strongly;  the 
simpler  original  pleased  Addison,  and  "  lifted  Pope  at  once 
to  the  first  rank  of  living  European  poets."  Swift  in  the  year 
following  said  that  "  the  best  poet  in  England  was  Mr.  Pope." 
He  continued  to  earn  the  title  anew  with  his  Homer  (1715) 
Dunciad  (1725)  and  Essay  on  Man  (1733-4). 

It  has  been  often  debated  whether  Pope's  verse  is  poetry. 
In  the  Introduction  to  the  Essay  on  Man  he  himself  says: 
"  This  I  might  have  done  in  prose,  but  I  chose  verse,  and  even 
rhyme,  for  two  reasons:  the  one  .  .  .  that  principles,  maxims, 
or  precepts,  so  written,  both  strike  the  reader  more  strongly 
at  first,  and  are  more  easily  retained.  The  other  ...  I  found 
I  could  express  them  more  shortly  this  way  than  in  prose  itself; 
and  .  .  .  much  of  the  force  as  well  as  grace  of  argument  or 
instructions  depends  on  their  conciseness."  This  is  clear,  and 
final ;  but  a  little  poetry  has  crept  in,  and  The  Rape  of  the  Lock 
is  a  complete  poetical  creation. 

The  letters  here  given  illustrate  Pope's  wit  (which  does  not 
spare  even  the  Roman  Church),  his  relations  with  Steele  and  The 
Spectator,  and  his  own  pathetic  consciousness  of  his  bodily 
deformity  (English  Anthology,  p.  477). 

1713,  John  Gay  (1685-1732) 

The  Quidnunkies    ......     480 

Sweet  William's  Farewell  to  Black-ey'd  Susan    .     481 

GAY  entered  the  literary  society  of  London  in  1711  as  the 
friend  and  protege  of  Steele  and  Pope.  His  Rural  Sports  had  a 


I7i8]    LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU        45 

success  in  1713,  The  Shepherd's  Week  in  1714,  The  What  d'ye 
Call  It  in  1715,  his  Fables  in  1727,  The  Beggar's  Opera  in  1728 
and  Polly  in  1729.  The  immense  popularity  of  The  Beggar's 
Opera  has  held  good  to  the  present  day;  in  1728  it  was  regarded 
as  an  attack  on  the  Italian  Opera  and  even  on  the  Court.  Polly 
was  forbidden  the  stage,  and  appeared  as  a  private  publication 
and  a  wider  scandal.  The  two  shorter  poems  here  given  are 
perfect  examples  of  Gay's  wit  and  versatility. 


1713,   Bishop  George  Berkeley  (1685-1753) 

PAGE 

Philosophical  Snuff  (The  Guardian,  No.  xxxv.)         483 

BERKELEY  came  from  Ireland  to  London  in  1713,  in  order  to 
publish  his  Dialogues  between  Hylas  and  Philonous  (Matter  and 
Mind).  He  became  the  intimate  friend  of  Steele,  Swift,  Addison 
and  Pope,  and  was  loved  by  all  for  his  character,  charm,  intel- 
lectual distinction,  and  "  every  virtue  under  Heaven  "  (Pope). 
His  style  is  as  flawless  as  Addison 's;  it  is  the  expression  of  an 
equally  urbane  temper,  with  more  personal  flavour. 


1718.    Matthew  Prior  (1664-1721) 

On  my  Birthday,  July  ai          ....     486 
A  Letter 487 

PRIOR,  after  being  for  years  in  high  place  as  a  Tory  Under- 
secretary of  State  and  Ambassador,  was  impeached  and  im- 
prisoned. At  his  release  in  1717  his  poems  were  collected,  and 
they  were  published  by  subscription  in  1718. 


1718.   Lady    Mary   Wortley    Montagu    (1689- 
1762) 

To  Mr.  P [Pope] 487 

LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU,  the  friend  of  Addison, 
Steele,  Congreve  and  (for  a  time)  Pope,  left  England  for  Con- 
stantinople in  1716,  and  in  the  following  two  years  wrote  some 
of  the  best  of  her  famous  letters,  including  the  one  here  quoted. 


46  DANIEL   DEFOE  [1719 

1719,    Daniel  Defoe  (1659-1731) 

PAGE 

Robinson  Crusoe     ......     490 

DEFOE  was  a  controversial  journalist  who  suddenly  invented 
in  his  sixtieth  year  an  entirely  new  kind  of  romance:  Robinson 
Crusoe  (1719).  His  other  memorable  books  were  Moll  Flanders 
and  The  History  of  the  Plague  (both  in  1722),  and  Roxana  in  1724. 
The  fame  of  Robinson  Crusoe  is  world-wide,  and  its  detailed 
realistic  method  has  influenced  many — notably  R.  L.  Stevenson. 

1726.    James  Thomson  (1700-48) 

The  Snowstorm  (Winter).         ....     495 

THOMSON  came  to  London  from  Scotland  in  1725  to  make 
his  fortune/  and  made  it  in  1726  by  the  publication  of  his  poem 
Winter,  followed  by  the  other  Seasons,  Summer  (1727),  Spring 
(1728)  and  Autumn  (1730).  Their  merit  and  great  popularity 
formed  for  the  remainder  of  the  century  a  chief  bulwark  of  the 
poetical  against  the  encroachment  of  the  prosaic  in  verse.  The 
rhythm  of  his  blank  verse  is  frequently  reproduced  by  Tennyson. 

1726.   Bishop  Joseph  Butler  (1692-1752) 

On  Resentment  and  Revenge  (Sermon  upon  For- 
giveness of  Injuries)    .  ...     498 

BISHOP  BUTLER'S  position  as  a  philosophical  divine  was  secured 
by  the  publication  in  1726  of  Fifteen  Sermons.  In  1736  the 
Analogy  of  Religion  appeared,  and  in  1738  he  became  Bishop 
of  Bristol. 

1735.    Henry  St.  John,  Viscount  Bolingbroke 
(1678-1751) 

Leaders  of  Men  (On  the  Spirit  of  Patriotism)    .     500 

BOLINGBROKE'S  career  was  that  of  a  politician  and  orator. 
His  book  A  Dissertation  on  Parties  appeared  in  1735,  and 
The  Idea  of  a  Patriot  King,  though  undated,  is  assigned  to 
the  same  date. 


1739]  DAVID   HUME  47 

1739-40.    Samuel  Richardson  (1689-1761) 

The  Virtuous  Lady's  Maid  (Pamela)  .         .     502 

In  1739  RICHARDSON  attracted  the  attention  of  some  pub- 
lishers, who  engaged  him  to  write  a  set  of  Familiar  Letters  as 
a  popular  handbook.  From  this  root  sprang  in  1740-1  Pamela: 
or  Virtue  Rewarded,  the  first  English  "  novel  of  manners." 
Clarissa:  or  the  History  of  a  Young  Lady  (1747-8)  and  Sir 
Charles  Grandison  (1754)  achieved  an  incredible  popularity. 

1739.    Samuel  Johnson  (1709-84) 

Addison  (Life  of  Addisori)          .         .         .         .     504 
The  Life  according  to  Nature  .         .  »     508 

One-and-twenty      .         .         .         .         .         .510 

JOHNSON  came  to  London  with  Garrick  in  1737:  in  1738  he 
published  his  poem  London,  which  was  successful  enough  to 
attract  Pope's  favourable  notice,  and  by  1739  Johnson  was  on 
the  staff  of  The  Gentleman's  Magazine.  The  Plan  of  a  Dictionary 
was  issued  in  1747,  and  The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes  appeared 
in  1749.  In  the  same  year  Irene,  a  tragedy  which  had  been 
refused  in  1738,  was  successfully  produced  by  Garrick  at  Drury 
Lane.  The  Dictionary  was  finished  in  1754;  The  Idler  begun 
in  1758;  Rasselas  appeared  in  1759;  Johnson's  Shakespeare  in 
1765;  and  his  Lives  of  the  Poets  in  1781. 

In  1763  he  began  to  be  attended  by  Boswell:  in  1764  he 
founded,  with  a  group  of  friends,  the  literary  society  called 
"  The  Club/'  which  has  lasted  to  the  present  day.  It  was 
suggested  to  him  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  and  among  other 
original  members  were  Edmund  Burke  and  Oliver  Goldsmith. 

The  power  of  Johnson's  character  and  conversation  were  so 
great  that  his  influence  may  reasonably  be  dated  not  from  his 
earliest  success  but  from  his  entry  into  the  world  of  letters. 

For  a  counter-attack  on  his  autocratic  judgments  see  the  letters 
by  Cowper  (English  Anthology,  pp.  572-4). 

1739.    David  Hume  (1711-76) 

A  Sceptic  on  Scepticism  (A  Treatise  of  Human 

Nature)   .  .  ...     512 

HUME'S  first  work,  the  Treatise  of  Human  Nature,  was  written 
1734-7  in  France,  but  not  published  till  1739;  and  his  Essays, 


48  HENRY  FIELDING  [1742 

Moral  and  Political,  appeared  in  1743  anonymously.    But  he  was 
already  known  and  highly  estimated  by  Butler  and  Adam  Smith. 


PAGE 


1742*    Henry  Fielding  (1707-54) 

The  Broken  Arm  (The  History  of  Tom  Jones)  .     .     516 

In  1742  FIELDING  published  Joseph  Andrews  as  an  ironical 
parallel  to  Richardson's  Pamela — the  virtuous  footman  beside 
the  virtuous  lady's  maid.  This  enraged  Richardson,  but  in  1749 
the  appearance  of  Tom  Jones  inflicted  a  far  more  fatal  com- 
parison upon  him.  This  time  Cervantes  was  Fielding's  model, 
and  the  result  was,  if  not  the  first  English  novel,  certainly  the 
first  Englishman's  novel. 

1 747-85 .   Horace    Walpole,    Earl    of    Orford 
(1717-97) 

War  and  Waste  (Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  King 

George  II.)       .        .         .         .         ,         .521 
To  the  Countess  of  Upper  Ossory     .         .         .     523 

HORACE  WALPOLE  during  his  life  was  a  virtuoso  and  a  per- 
sonage rather  than  a  literary  man;  but  he  was  an  admirable 
letter-writer  and  amateur  chronicler,  from  1747  to  1785. 

1748.   Tobias  Smollett  (1721-71) 

Tom  Bowling  (Roderick  Random)       *         .         ,     524 

SMOLLETT  was  a  surgeon's  mate  in  the  navy,  and  afterwards 
a  surgeon  at  Westminster.  After  failing  in  satirical  poetry  he 
achieved  success  in  1748  with  Roderick  Random,  a  novel  in 
imitation  of  Don  Quixote  and  Gil  Bias.  Peregrine  Pickle  followed 
in  1751,  and  Humphrey  Clinker,  Sir  Walter  Scott's  favourite, 
in  1771. 

For  a  descendant  and  namesake  of  Tom  Bowling,  see  Dibdin 
(English  Anthology,  p.  599). 

1751.   Thomas  Gray  (1716-71) 

Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Churchyard      .         .     527 
To  Dr.  Clarke         ......     531 

To  Mr.  Nicholls 532 

GRAY,  a  very  early  friend  of  Horace  Walpole,  wrote  poems 
from  1742,  but  his  famous  Elegy  was  published  in  1751,  as  a 


1760]  LAURENCE  STERNE  49 

separate  quarto,  and  reprinted  in  a  volume  of  collected  poems 
in  1753.  It  had  many  imitators — William  Whitehead's  Elegies 
are  better  than  any  intentional  parody — and  some  detractors, 
including  Mrs.  Meynell;  but  it  remains  one  of  the  most  famous 
poems  in  the  language. 

Gray  was  one  of  our  best  letter-writers:  in  the  first  of  those 
here  given  he  anticipates  the  flavour  of  Charles  Lamb;  in  the 
second  he  paints  the  first  sunset  in  English. 

1746,   William  Collins  (1721-59) 

Jy/  PAGE 

Ode  to  Evening 534 

How  sleep  the  Brave        .         .         .         .         .     536 

COLLINS  came  to  London  in  1745,  and  in  1746,  when  aged  25, 
published  his  little  volume  of  Odes.  It  was  unsuccessful,  and 
he  burnt  the  edition.  It  contained  at  least  five  poems  of  incom- 
parable beauty  and  destined  him  to  fill  one  of  the  highest  niches 
of  Fame.  $ 

1760.    James  MacPherson  (1736-96) 

Ossian's  Farewell  (The  War  of  Caros — Poems  of 

Ossian)    .......     536 

In  1760  MACPHERSON  published  anonymously  Fragments  of 
Ancient  Gaelic  Poetry,  and  in  1762  Fingal,  an  epic  professing  to 
be  translated  from  Ossian.  If  not  this,  it  may  have  been  a 
deliberate  forgery,  or  a  concoction  from  genuine  relics.  Johnson 
denounced  it ;  Gray  was  puzzled  but  inclined  to  belief  (see 
letter,  English  Anthology,  p.  532) ;  Walpole  was  contemptuously 
indifferent  (see  letter,  English  Anthology,  p.  524).  Meanwhile 
MacPherson  made  a  fortune  in  Florida  and  India,  got  into 
Parliament,  and  was  eventually  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

1760.    Laurence  Sterne  (1713-68) 

Widow  Wadman  and  my  Uncle  Toby  (Tristram 
Shandy) 538 

The  Reverend  LAURENCE  STERNE  had  the  first  volumes  of  his 
Tristram  Shandy  printed  at  York  in  1759,  and  in  1760  took  them 
to  London  to  be  published.  Garrick  had  already  talked  en- 
thusiastically of  the  book,  and  Sterne  was  instantly  the  fashion. 
He  finished  Vols.  V.  and  VI.  in  1761  and  went  to  France  for  his 
health ;  Vol.  IX.  was  published  in  1767 ;  cetera  desunt. 
D 


50  CHRISTOPHER  SMART  [1763 

1763*    Christopher  Smart  (1722-70) 

PAGK 

From  "  The  Song  to  David  "  .         4         «         .     540 

SMART,  a  scholar  and  fellow  of  Pembroke  College,  Oxford, 
became  insane  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  and  twelve  years  later 
(1763)  wrote  in  the  asylum  at  Bedlam  his  one  poem,  The  Song  to 
David.  It  is  a  breathless  rhapsody,  and  was  unique  until  1913, 
when  Mr.  Ralph  Hodgson's  Song  of  Honour  appeared — a  singular 
instance  of  one  masterpiece  directly  inspiring  another  of  equal 
beauty  and  originality. 

1766*    Oliver  Goldsmith  (1728-74) 

The  Deserted  Village  »         .         .  543 

In  1762  Johnson  pronounced  GOLDSMITH  to  be  "  one  of  the 
first  men  we  now  have  as  an  author,"  and  sold  for  him  his  novel, 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  which  appeared  at  last  in  1766  and  made 
his  name  at  once.  In  1767  he  made  £500  by  his  comedy  The 
Good-Natur'd  Man ;  in  1770  appeared  his  much-quoted  poem 
The  Deserted  Village.  It  was  dedicated,  in  the  charming  letter 
here  given  with  it,  to  his  friend  and  fellow-member  of  "  The 
Club,"  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

1769*    Thomas  Chatterton  (1752-70) 

Song  from  JElla.      ......     547 

In  1758,  when  he  was  under  16,  CHATTERTON  produced  the 
forged  "  Rowley  Papers  "  and  quasi-fifteenth-century  poems. 
He  sent  them  to  Walpole,  and  Walpole  handed  them  on  to 
Gray,  who  immediately  pronounced  against  their  authenticity. 
In  1769  Chatterton  came  to  London  and  sold  his  Revenge,  a 
musical  farce,  for  £5;  but  in  1770  poisoned  himself  to  avoid 
death  by  starvation.  His  poems  are  in  parts  beautiful,  but  his 
fame  is  in  reality  a  kind  of  charitable  subscription,  called  forth 
by  sympathy  for  his  miserable  life  and  his  "  desperate  appeal  to 
the  romantic  past  "  from  the  cold  conventionality  of  his  time. 

1769*    Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  (1723-92) 

Art  and  Imitation  (Discourse  XIII.)  .         .         .     549 

REYNOLDS  was  unanimously  elected  first  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy  in  1768  and  delivered  the  first  of  his  celebrated  Dis- 
courses in  1769.  For  his  literary  friendships  see  the  notes  on 
Johnson  and  Goldsmith,  supra. 


1776]  EDWARD   GIBBON  51 

1770.    Edmund  Burke  (1729-97) 

Despotic  Revolutionaries  (Reflections  on  the  French 

Revolution)       ......     552 

BURKE'S  brilliant  career  opened  in  1770  with  the  anonymous 
publication  of  his  Thoughts  on  the  Causes  of  the  Present  Dis- 
contents, at  first  attributed  to  Junius.  His  immense  popularity 
was  not  gained  by  his  fine  pamphlets  on  American  affairs  (1774-5), 
but  by  his  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France  (1790)  and  his 
Thoughts  on  the  Prospect  of  a  Regicide  Peace  (1795).  The  striking 
parallel  between  the  European  situation  in  his  age  and  in  ours 
has  been  vehemently  made  to  prove  both  the  value  and  the 
futility  of  arguments  drawn  from  historical  examples. 

(1774).    Philip     Dormer     Stanhope,    Earl    of 
Chesterfield  (1694-1773) 

On  Vulgarity  and  Vulgarisms  (Letters  to  his  Son  on 

Education)  .  .  .  .  .  •  555 

On  the  Power  of  Style  (Letters  to  his  Son  on 

Education)  .  .  .  .  .  •  557 

CHESTERFIELD'S  Letters  to  his  Sonf  published  (1774)  after  his 
death,  are  his  title  to  literary  fame,  though  he  had  also  written 
a  few  excellent  political  essays. 

1775.  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  (1751-1816) 

The  Rivals,  Act  I.  Scene  ii.  .         .         .     559 

SHERIDAN'S  literary  career  began  and  ended  with  The  Rivals 
(i?75)/  The  School  for  Scandal  (1777)  and  The  Critic  (1779),  all 
produced  when  he  was  between  24  and  28. 

1776.  Edward  Gibbon  (1737-94) 

The  Defeat  of  the  Huns  (Decline  and  Fall  of  the 

Roman  Empire)  ,     563 

GIBBON'S  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  planned 
in  1764,  and  begun  in  1770.  The  first  volume,  finished  in  1773, 
was  published  in  1776,  and  had  a  resounding  success  in  London 
and  Paris.  The  whole  book  was  finished  in  1787,  and  publica- 
tion was  completed  in  1788. 


52  FRANCES  BURNEY  [1778 

1778*    Frances  Burney  (1752-1848) 

PAGE 

Hero  and  Villain  (Evelina)        .  566 

FANNY  BURNEY  (Madame  d'Arblay)  was  the  daughter  of  Dr. 
Charles  Burney,  a  friend  of  Johnson,  Burke  and  Reynolds,  and 
a  member  of  "  The  Club."  Her  novels,  Evelina  (1778)  and 
Cecilia  (1782),  made  her  famous  though  her  name  did  not  appear 
on  them,  and  she  received  the  appointment  of  Second  Keeper 
of  the  Robes  to  Queen  Charlotte.  Her  entertaining  Diary  was 
published  (1842-6)  after  her  death. 

1781.  Jeremy  Bentham  (1748-1832) 

The  Seed  of  Anarchy  (A  Critical  Examination  of 

the  Declaration  of  Rights)   .         .         .         .     569 

BENTHAM'S  Fragment  on  Government,  published  anonymously 
in  1776,  when  he  was  only  28,  was  at  first  attributed  to  Lord 
Mansfield,  and  gained  for  its  author  the  friendship  and  interest 
of  Lord  Shelburne  and  the  Whigs.  For  four  years  he  was  a 
constant  inmate  of  Bowood,  and  by  1781  had  reached  a  position 
of  great  importance  both  in  the  public  view  and  in  his  own. 
His  Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  Morals  and  Legislation, 
written  and  printed  in  1780  but  unpublished  till  1789,  contains 
"  the  bedrock  of  his  philosophy,"  and  Professor  Elton  in  his 
Survey  of  English  Literature  also  comments  on  the  linguistic 
experiments  in  Bentham's  later  works,  which  gave  us  such 
words  as  "  international,"  "  codify  "  and  "  minimise." 

1785,   William  Cowper  (1731-1800) 

To  the  Rev.  William  Unwin,  October  1779,  and 
January  1782    ......     572 

The  Dinner  Party  (Table  Talk)          .         .         .     576 

COWPER'S  first  Poems  (including  Table  Talk)  were  published 
in  1782.  His  John  Gilpin  appeared  anonymously  in  1783,  and 
in  1785  The  Task  achieved  a  great  success.  His  "  incompar- 
ably witty,  tender  and  graceful  Letters,"  as  Mr.  Gosse  has  well 
called  them,  were  published  in  1803,  after  his  death.  The 
two  here  are  selected  for  the  interest  of  their  comments  on 
the  poems  of  Milton,  Prior  and  Dryden,  and  their  Lives 
by  Johnson  ("King  Critic"). 


1787]  WILLIAM  BLAKE  53 

1786.  Robert  Burns  (1759-96) 

v     '  •'•s     »  PAGE 

ToJ.  S 578 

The  Banks  o'  Boon 583 

For  a'  that  and  a'  that 584 

Ae  Fond  Kiss 585 

Auld  Lang  Syne     .         .         .         .  '•  586 

To  Mary  in  Heaven         .         .         .  •  587 

BURNS  published  in  July  1786  his  immortal  Poems,  chiefly  in  the 
Scottish  Dialect,  and  with  them  "  the  reserve  and  quietism  of 
the  eighteenth  century  broke  up." 

O  ye  douce  folk,  that  live  by  rule, 
Grave,  tideless-blooded,  calm,  and  cool, 
Compar'd  wi' you — O  fool  I  fool!  fool! 

How  much  unlike ! 
Your  hearts  are  just  a  standing  pool, 

Your  lives,  a  dyke ! 
(English  Anthology,  pp.  578-83.) 

1787,  William  Blake  (1757-1827) 

To  the  Muses         ......  588 

Hear  the  Voice 588 

The  Tiger 589 

Songs  of  Innocence          .....  590 

Infant  Joy      .......  591 

The  Land  of  Dreams       .         .         .         .         .  591 

From  Milton  .......  592 

From  Jerusalem       ......  592 

BLAKE  engraved  and  published  his  Songs  of  Innocence  in 
1787,  The  Book  of  Thel  in  1789,  and  The  Marriage  of  Heaven 
and  Hell  in  1790.  In  1794  he  published  in  the  ordinary  manner 
his  Songs  of  Experience  and  several  of  his  prophetic  books. 
In  1804  he  engraved  his  Jerusalem  and  Milton.  Lamb  first 
heard  of  him  in  1824  (S£e  English  Anthology,  pp.  664-5).  Blake's 
poetry  is  the  work  of  one  deeply  read  in  Chaucer,  the  Bible, 
the  Elizabethans  and  Ossian,  and  in  the  spirit  of  these  he  sang 
out  of  sight  and  hearing  of  the  classical  age.  But  his  deepest 
inspiration  came  from  within  himself;  his  poetry  has  a  timeless 
quality  which  belongs  only  to  the  greatest.  The  separate  but 


54  GILBERT  WHITE  [1789 

simultaneous  appearance  of  Burns  and  Blake  was  the  most 
portentous  conjunction  ever  seen  in  the  poetic  sky.  Of  Blake's 
many  followers  W.  B.  Yeats  and  Mary  Coleridge  are  the  most 
remarkable  (see  post,  p.  85). 


PAGE 


1789.    Gilbert  White  (1720-93) 

Gossamer  (Natural  History  of  Selborne)      .         .     594 

GILBERT  WHITE  wrote  The  Natural  History  and  Antiquities 
of  Selborne  between  1780  and  1788  and  published  it  in  1789. 
It  was  the  first  book  of  its  kind  in  English,  and  is  still  a  classic 
both  of  science  and  literature. 

1791,   James  Boswell  (1740-95) 

His  Introduction  to  Johnson  (Life  of  Dr.  Johnson)     596 

BOSWELL  came  to  London  in  1760,  but  did  not  succeed  in 
meeting  Johnson  till  "  Monday  the  i6th  of  May  "  1763,  as 
here  related.  He  then  travelled;  on  his  return  in  1768  he  began 
his  unique  collection  of  notes  for  The  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson,  which 
he  published  in  1791 :  the  most  minute,  fascinating  and  famous 
biography  ever  written,  and  the  work  of  a  man  who  had  at 
least  "  a  genius." 

1798,    Charles  Dibdin  (1745-1814) 

Tom  Bowling          ......     599 

DIBDIN'S  first  song,  Blow  High,  Blow  Low,  was  produced  about 
1776,  and  he  wrote  till  1810.  He  reached  his  greatest  popularity 
and  patriotic  influence  during  the  wars  of  1793-8 — the  period 
of  "  the  First  of  June,"  St.  Vincent,  Camperdown  and  the 
Nile.  His  exemplars  were  Martin  Parker  and  Gay.  For  the 
name  Tom  Bowling  see  Smollett,  ante  (1748). 

1798.   William  Wordsworth  (1770-1850) 

England,  1802         ......     600 

The  Solitary  Reaper        .         .         .         .         .601 

Ode :  Intimations  of  Immortality  from  Recollec- 
tions of  Early  Childhood  ....     602 

Tales  and  Romances  (The  Prelude,  Book  V.)        .     608 
Poetry  and  Science  (Preface  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads)    609 


1798]       SAMUEL   TAYLOR   COLERIDGE  55 

WORDSWORTH  was  living  at  Alfoxden,  and  Coleridge  at  Nether 
Stowey  in  close  intimacy  with  him,  when  in  1798  they  published 
their  famous  and  epoch-making  volume  of  Lyrical  Ballads :  see 
Hazlitt's  very  interesting  account  of  them  (English  Anthology, 
pp.  741-5).  Wordsworth  the  same  year  left  for  Germany 
and  there  began  The  Prelude,  which  was  not  published  till 
after  his  death  in  1850.  In  1802  he  married  Mary  Hutchinson, 
and  in  1803  travelled  with  her  and  his  inseparable  sister  Dorothy 
through  the  Highlands;  The  Solitary  Reaper  belongs  to  this 
episode.  The  Happy  Warrior  in  1805  commemorates  Nelson, 
and  in  some  degree  his  own  brother  Captain  John  Wordsworth, 
lost  at  sea.  In  1812  he  moved  to  the  Lake  country,  where  he 
wrote  The  Excursion  in  1814,  and  the  Sonnets  to  the  River  Duddon 
in  1820.  In  1831  he  visited  Scott  at  Abbotsford,  and  in  1843 
he  became  Poet  Laureate.  The  Preface  to  the  second  edition 
of  the  Lyrical  Ballads  (1800)  places  Wordsworth  in  the  highest 
rank  of  English  literary  critics. 


1798,    Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  (1772-1834) 

PAGE 

The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner     .         .         .611 
Kubla  Khan  ......     631 

What  is  Poetry  t  (Biographia  Literarid)      .         .     633 

COLERIDGE  was  two  years  younger  than  Wordsworth  and 
was  attracted  to  the  poetical  partnership  by  reading  the  first 
fragment  of  The  Excursion  in  1797.  His  contribution  to  the 
Lyrical  Ballads  consisted  of  only  four  poems  to  Wordsworth's 
nineteen,  but  included  The  Rime  of  the  Ancyent  Mariner e,  which 
in  originality  and  beauty  as  well  as  in  length  eclipsed  all  the 
rest.  In  1798  he  began  Christabel  (which  has  an  important 
Preface  on  the  use  of  stress  in  English  verse)  and  wrote  the 
fragment  Kubla  Khan.  By  these  poems  he  proved  himself, 
though  weaker  than  Wordsworth  in  purpose,  dignity  and  moral 
power,  a  greater  master  of  metre  and  of  magical  charm.  To- 
gether they  brought  the  clear  light  of  day  back  to  English 
poets,  long  straitened  and  stifled  by  the  stony  monuments 
built  by  themselves  and  their  predecessors  of  the  Augustan 
age.  For  the  origin  of  Kubla  Khan  see  note  on  Purchas 
(1613,  English  Anthology,  p.  294),  and  for  Lamb's  view  of 
it  see  the  letter  to  Wordsworth,  English  Anthology,  p.  663 
("  an  owl  that  won't  bear  daylight "), 


56  THOMAS   CAMPBELL  [1799 

1799.  Thomas  Campbell  (1777-1844) 

Ye  Mariners  of  England  ,         .         .         .     635 

Hohenlinden  .......     636 

In  1799  CAMPBELL  published  at  Edinburgh  his  Pleasures  of 
Hope,  and  "  the  demand  for  copies  was  unprecedented  " ;  Scott's 
friendship  followed  immediately,  and  general  recognition. 
Hohenlinden  was  written  in  1800;  The  Battle  of  the  Baltic 
(1801)  appeared  in  its  present  much  revised  form  in  1804; 
Gertrude  of  Wyoming  in  1809;  from  1820  to  1830  Campbell 
edited  The  New  Monthly  Magazine.  He  died  in  1844  and  was 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

For  the  origin  of  YE  MARINERS  OF  ENGLAND  see  note  on 
Martin  Parker  (1635)  and  English  Anthology,  pp.  335-7. 
Campbell  had  heard  an  intermediate  version  sung  (to  music 
written  by  Dr.  Calcott)  in  1804. 

1800.  Thomas  Moore  (1779-1852) 

The  Light  of  Other  Days          ....     638 
At  the  Mid  Hour  of  Night        ....     639 

THOMAS  MOORE,  a  musical  Irishman  of  diminutive  stature, 
published  his  Odes  of  Anacreon  in  1800,  and  Poems  of  the  late 
Thomas  Little  in  1801.  They  were  a  fashionable  success,  but 
his  Odes  and  Epistles  (1809)  were  cut  up  in  The  Edinburgh  Review. 
Moore  challenged  Jeffrey  to  fight,  and  thereby  gained  his  friend- 
ship and  an  excellent  advertisement.  His  Irish  Melodies  appeared 
between  1807  and  1834,  and  Lalla  Rookh  in  1817;  these  brought 
him  the  then  unparalleled  sum  of  £16,000.  In  1811  he  became 
Byron's  friend,  and  in  1830  published  his  Life  and  Letters  of 
Lord  Byron. 

AT  THE  MID  HOUR  OF  NIGHT  is  an  experiment  in  "  stressed 
verse."  See  the  note  on  Coleridge  (1798),  his  Preface  to  Christabel, 
and  the  note  on  Robert  Bridges  (post,  p.  83). 

1800.    Maria  Edgeworth  (1767-1849) 

The  End  of  Sir  Condy  (Castle  Rackreni)    .         .     639 

MARIA  EDGEWORTH,  a  born  story-teller,  published  her  first 
and  best  novel,  Castle  Rackrent,  in  1800,  Irish  Bulls  in  1802, 


1805]  SIR   WALTER   SCOTT  57 

and  Belinda  in  1803.  They  gave  her  a  great  reputation  in 
Ireland,  England  and  France,  increased  by  two  series  of  Fashion- 
able Tales  (1809-1812).  Scott,  whose  Waverley  did  not  appear 
till  1814,  declared  that  he  owed  his  impulse  in  part  to  her, 
and  in  1825  he  came  to  Edgeworthstown  to  see  her. 

1802.   William  Cobbett  (1762-1835) 

PAGE 

The  Ride  to  Moore  Park  (Rural  Rides)       .         .     642 

COBBETT,  the  son  of  a  farm-labourer,  and  at  one  time  a  sergeant 
in  the  British  army,  began  writing  in  America  (Peter  Porcupine's 
Journal).  He  returned  to  England  in  1800,  and  in  1802  made  his 
mark  by  producing  his  Weekly  Register.  His  best  work  is  in 
his  Rural  Rides  (1830),  described  in  admirable  and  "  sturdy  " 
English. 

1805,    Sir  Walter  Scott  (1771-1832) 

The  Hold  of  a  Highland  Robber  (Waverley)        .  645 

Proud  Maisie          ......  654 

Brignall  Banks         *         .         .         .         .         .  655 

Nelson  and  Pitt 657 

Sound,  Sound  the  Clarion        ....  658 

SCOTT,  after  collecting  the  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border 
(1802-3),  published  his  own  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel  in  London 
in  1805,  and  its  success  determined  his  career.  Marmion  followed 
in  1808.  Scott  then  completed  Strutt's  unfinished  mediaeval 
story  Queenhoo  Hall  (with  an  interesting  Preface);  and  pub- 
lished The  Lady  of  the  Lake  in  1810,  with  unexampled  success. 
Waverley,  the  first  of  his  novels,  appeared  anonymously  in  1814, 
and  he  went  even  further  than  Swift  (see  note  on  Gulliver, 
ante,  1710,  and  the  letters  in  English  Anthology,  pp.  452-4),  in 
denying  the  authorship  of  his  own  work.  (He  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Slade,  "  As  I  am  not  the  Author  of  Waverley,  nor  in  any  way 
connected  with  these  very  successful  novels,"  etc.)  The  other 
novels  were  all  written  between  1816  and  1829. 

"  When  Scott  died,  his  was  doubtless  the  strongest  natural- 
istic influence  in  Europe.  All  the  romances  of  Alexander 
Dumas  and  Victor  Hugo  sprang  directly  from  him;  he  had 
inspired  Fouque  in  Germany,  Manzoni  in  Italy,  and  Fernan 
Caballero  in  Spain  "  (E.  Gosse). 


58  CHARLES   LAMB  [1807 

The  famous  lines,  SOUND,  SOUND  THE  CLARION,  were  long 
attributed  to  Scott,  but  have  lately  been  discovered  to  be 
a  single  stanza  of  a  poem  by  General  Mordaunt,  used  by  Scott 
as  a  chapter  heading,  with  the  slight  change  in  the  second  line 
of  "  To  all,"  instead  of  "  Throughout." 


PAGE 


1807,    Charles  Lamb  (1775-1834) 

To  Thomas  Manning       .  659 

To  William  Wordsworth  .  662 

To  Bernard  Barton          .....  664 

The  Old  Familiar  Faces   .....  666 

CHARLES  LAMB,  whose  farce  Mr.  H.  had  been  hissed  in  1806, 
made  (with  his  sister  Mary)  a  popular  success  in  1807  with 
Tales  from  Shakespeare.  In  1808  appeared  The  Adventures  of 
Ulysses  and  Specimens  of  the  English  Dramatic  Poets.  In  1820 
The  London  Magazine  invited  Lamb  to  contribute  the  papers 
afterwards  republished  as  The  Essays  of  Elia  (1823).  These  were 
very  favourably  received,  and  The  Last  Essays  of  Elia  were  added 
in  1833.  But  even  these  famous  books  are  for  many  surpassed 
by  Lamb's  charming  letters,  the  most  delightful  ever  written  in 
English.  It  is  unfortunate  that  they  have  been  much  garbled 
by  editors,  and  the  originals  are  now  in  America.  By  the  kind- 
ness of  Mr.  N.  Haskell  Dole  the  second  edition  of  the  English 
Anthology  gives  for  the  first  time  in  this  country  the  true  (and 
very  characteristic)  reading  of  the  sentence  in  the  Letter  to 
Thomas  Manning  (English  Anthology,  p.  660)  on  the  eleventh 
grade  of  Lamb  as  a  possible  "  accession  of  dignity." 

1807,    George  Crabbe  (1754-1832) 

The  Library  .......     667 

The  Village    .......     670 

CRABBE,  brought  up  in  poverty  first  as  errand  boy  and  then 
as  surgeon's  apprentice,  came  to  London  at  24  and  published 
a  poem,  The  Candidate,  anonymously  in  1780.  It  failed,  but 
he  wrote  to  Burke,  who  introduced  him  to  Reynolds,  Thurlow 
and  Fox.  In  1781  he  published  The  Library  anonymously,  and 
in  1783  The  Village,  with  his  name.  These  are  admirable,  but 
they  did  not  help  him,  and  he  took  Holy  orders.  In  1807  he 
made  a  success  with  a  volume  of  Poems  and  a  long  poem,  The 
Parish  Register.  Finally  The  Borough  (1810),  Tales  in  Verse 


i8u]  JANE  AUSTEN  59 

(1812)  and  Tales  of  the  Hall  (1819)  made  him  famous  and 
widely  popular.  His  verse  descends  from  that  of  Dryden,  but 
his  themes  are  modern:  his  stories  are  natural,  admirably  told, 
and  often  with  great  humour. 

1810.    Charles  Wolfe  (1791-1823) 

•x/  PAGE 

The  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore  after  Corunna      .     673 

WOLFE,  a  young  Irish  clergyman  who  produced  only  one  well- 
known  poem  and  died  at  31,  is  ignored  by  some  historians 
of  English  literature.  But  The  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore  was 
immensely  popular  from  the  first,  and  was  attributed  to  Byron, 
who  in  disclaiming  it  told  Shelley  that  he  "  should  have  taken 
it  for  a  rough  sketch  of  Campbell's."  For  a  more  just  and 
generous  account  of  it  see  Professor  Elton's  Survey  of  English 
Literature,  1780-1830.  Different  dates  are  assigned  to  the  first 
publication  of  the  poem  (Professor  Elton  1814,  Mr.  Gosse  1817, 
etc.).  It  is  possibly  therefore  misplaced  here. 

1810.  Robert  Southey  (1774-1843) 

The  Pilgrimage  to  Waterloo     ...»     674 
Nelson  Dead  (The  Life  of  Horatio  Lord  Nelson)    .     676 

SOUTHEY'S  reputation  rests  upon  his  Curse  of  Kehama  (1810), 
the  finest  of  an  immense  series  of  immense  epic  poems  published 
between  1801  and  1814.  He  wrote  much  for  the  new  Quarterly 
Review;  and  in  1813  succeeded  Pye  as  Poet  Laureate.  In  the 
same  year  appeared  his  prose  masterpiece,  The  Life  of  Nelson. 

THE  PILGRIMAGE  TO  WATERLOO  is  one  of  his  best  minor  poems, 
and  has  a  curious  and  fresh  interest  for  the  present  post-war 
generation. 

1811.  Jane  Austen  (1775-1817) 

Anne  Elliot's  Claim  (Persuasion)         .         .         .     678 

In  1811  JANE  AUSTEN  made  her  first  appearance  in  print, 
with  Sense  and  Sensibility  (written  1797).  This  was  followed 
in  1813  by  Pride  and  Prejudice  (written  1797),  Mansfield  Park 
(1814),  Emma  (1816);  and  Persuasion  (written  1817)  and  North- 
anger  Abbey  (written  1798)  were  published  in  1818,  after  her 
death.  "  She  is  the  mother  of  the  nineteenth-century  novel,  as 
Scott  is  the  father  of  it"  (Saintsbury). 


60  LEIGH   HUNT  [1814 

1814,    Leigh  Hunt  (1784-1859)  PAGE 

Abou  Ben  Adhem 684 

LEIGH  HUNT,  editor  of  The  Examiner  1808  to  1821,  was  im- 
prisoned in  Surrey  Gaol  1813-15.  He  made  a  poetical  reputation 
with  The  Feast  of  the  Poets  (1814),  The  Descent  of  Liberty  (1815), 
The  Story  of  Rimini  (1816)  and  Foliage  (1818).  He  was  taken  up 
by  Keats,  Lamb,  Shelley  and  Byron,  and  became  the  leader  of 
44  the  Cockney  School."  From  1828  to  1838  he  made  successive 
failures  with  periodicals,  but  regained  success,  as  an  essayist, 
with  Imagination  and  Fancy  (1844),  Men,  Women  and  Books 
(1847),  A  Jar  of  Honey  from  Mount  Hybla  (1848)  and  his 
Autobiography  (1850). 

1816.    Major  -  General    Sir    W.    F*    P*  Napier 

(1785-1860) 
The  Death  of  Sir  John  Moore  (History  of  the  War 

in  the  Peninsula)        ,  684 

NAPIER  served  through  the  Peninsular  War  in  the  Oxfordshire 
Light  Infantry  of  the  famous  Light  Division.  He  began  his 
historical  notes  in  1816,  and  his  History  of  the  War  in  the  Penin- 
sula, when  it  appeared  in  successive  volumes  (1828-40),  proved 
him  to  possess  a  genius  for  military  history  superior  to  that  of 
Southey  and  even  of  Scott. 

1816.  Ebenezer  Elliot  (1781-1849) 

Plaint 689 

ELLIOTT  was  known  for  some  interesting  verse  by  1816,  and 
achieved  a  special  reputation  by  his  Corn-Law  Rhymes  in  1828. 
He  owed  something  to  Campbell,  and  more  to  Crabbe.  His 
"  humane  rage  "  was  admired  by  Carlyle. 

1817,  John  Clare  (1793-1864) 

The  Wood-Cutter's  Night  Song  .  *  .  690 
The  Shepherd's  Tree  .  *  .  .  .691 
Written  in  Northampton  County  Asylum  .  .691 

Clare,  the  Northamptonshire  Peasant  Poet,  who  lived  in  the 
deepest  poverty  and  died  after  having  been  many  years  in  an 
asylum,  cannot  be  said  to  have  ever  reached  a  position  of  literary 
influence.  His  strange  poetical  career  began  in  1817  when  he 


i8i8]  GEORGE   GORDON   BYRON  61 

printed  "Proposals  for  publishing  by  subscription  a  Collection 
of  Original  Trifles  on  Miscellaneous  Subjects,  Religious  and 
Moral/  in  verse,  by  John  Clare  of  Helpstone."  The  poems  were 
inquired  for  and  at  last  published  in  1820  and  well  reviewed. 
Neglect  and  financial  troubles  followed  the  brief  success;  the 
poet  went  back  to  the  land  and  tried  to  sell  his  poems  from  house 
to  house;  illness  and  insanity  followed.  It  was  not  until  1908 
that  a  real  estimate  of  his  work  was  published  by  Mr.  Arthur 
Symons.  In  1920  John  Clare  :  Poems  chiefly  from  MS.  was 
published  (by  Mr.  Blunden),  and  the  English  public  recognised 
the  peculiar  charm,  minutely  beautiful  vision,  and  pathetic 
power  of  an  almost  forgotten  poet. 

1818.    George    Gordon    Byron,    Lord    Byron 
(1788-1824) 

V     '  PAGE 

When  We  Two  Parted 692 

On  Himself  and  his  Epic  (Don  Juan)          .         .     693 
The  Isles  of  Greece         .....     697 

BYRON'S  life  might  be  divided  into  two  periods:  the  first 
began  with  his  Hours  of  Idleness  (1807),  derided  in  The  Edinburgh 
Review;  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers  (1809),  a  piece 
of  successful  but  crude  satire,  mostly  recanted  afterwards; 
some  cantos  of  Childe  Harold  (1812),  a  piece  of  sentimental 
autobiography,  eagerly  devoured  by  the  public ;  and  a  series 
of  tales  in  verse,  The  Giaour,  The  Bride  of  Abydos  and  others 
(1813-16).  Then  came  scandal,  unpopularity  and  exile,  during 
which  Manfred  was  written  and  another  canto  of  Childe  Harold. 
At  the  height  of  this  period  of  precocious  notoriety  Byron  was 
in  England  the  rival  of  Scott,  and  his  reputation  at  any  rate 
might  well  be  dated  from  1812. 

But  his  wider  and  more  lasting  fame  began  later,  in  the  period 
of  his  reckless  and  wilfully  romantic  Italian  wanderings,  "  the 
birth-hour  of  his  deeper  soul  and  genius."  In  1815  he  published 
Beppo,  finished  Mazeppa  and  began  Don  Juan.  In  1819  the 
Guiccioli  adventure  followed.  In  1820  he  wrote  Marino  Faliero, 
The  Prophecy  of  Dante  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  cantos  of  Don 
Juan.  In  1821  his  Cain  and  in  1823  his  ft*16  satire,  The  Vision 
of  Judgment,  outraged  and  exasperated  public  feeling  in  England. 
But  it  was  during  these  five  years  of  amazing  vigour  and  growth 
that  his  genius  established  on  the  Continent  an  empire  only 
paralleled  by  that  of  Shakespeare  himself.  Professor  Elton,  in 
his  detailed  study  of  Byron  (Survey  of  English  Literature,  1780- 


62  JOHN  KEATS  [1818 

1830,  pp.  135-182),  attributes  this  to  the  combined  effect  of 
his  Titanic  rebelliousness,  his  satiric  but  powerful  observation 
of  life  in  Don  Juan,  and  his  fame  as  the  liberator  of  Greece 
and  champion  of  insurgent  nationalities.  Such  fame  as  this 
is  out  of  sight  of  the  precocious  audacities  of  the  young  nobleman 
of  1809  and  1812. 


PAGE 


1818.  John  Keats  (1795-1821) 

On  first  looking  into  Chapman's  Homer     .         .  700 

Endymion      .......  701 

Robin  Hood  .         .         .         .         .         .         .  701 

To  Autumn   .......  703 

Ode  to  a  Nightingale        .....  704 

A  Letter  from  Winchester         ....  706 

The  Eve  of  Saint  Mark    .....  707 

Hyperion        .         .         .         .         .         .         .  711 

La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci        ....  714 

His  Last  Sonnet      ......  716 

KEATS  was  adopted  by  Leigh  Hunt  and  "  the  Cockney  School  " 
in  1816;  his  first  Poems  failed  in  1817.  In  1818  he  burst  into 
full  flower  with  unparalleled  suddenness,  published  Endymion 
and  wrote  The  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  and  Hyperion.  In  1819  he  wrote 
the  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  the  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  the  Ode 
to  Autumn,  Isabella,  Lamia,  the  Eve  of  Saint  Mark  fragment 
and  the  revised  portion  of  Hyperion;  these  were  published  in 
July  1820.  In  February  1821  he  died  in  Rome. 

Keats  assimilated  many  influences:  the  outline  of  the  Greek 
art,  the  romantic  colour  of  the  Ballads,  Ariosto  and  the  Eliza- 
bethans, the  metrical  style  of  Chaucer,  Dryden  and  Gray.  His 
own  influence  on  English  poets  is  unequalled — he  is  one  of 
the  "  full-welling  fountain-heads  of  change." 

1819.  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  (1792-1822) 

To  a  Skylark 716 

Remorse         .......     719 

A  Voice  in  the  Air  Singing  (Prometheus  Unbound)  720 
Asia's  Reply  (Prometheus  Unbound)  .  .  .721 
Empire  and  Victory  (Prometheus  Unbound)  .  722 
Chorus  (Hellas) 723 


i822]  THOMAS   LOVE  PEACOCK  63 

SHELLEY  came  suddenly  to  public  notice  in  1819,  when  he 
was  violently  attacked  in  The  Quarterly  Review.  He  had  already 
published,  without  any  effect  or  attention,  Queen  Mab  (1813), 
Alastor  (1816)  and  Laon  and  Cythna  (1817).  The  Cenci  (1819) 
and  Prometheus  Unbound  (1820)  were  followed  by  Adonais 
(1821).  Many  other  poems,  including  the  six  wonderful  lyrics 
here  given,  were  only  published  after  his  death.  He  inherited 
and  bequeathed  far  less  of  his  qualities  than  many  lesser  poets : 
naturally,  for  he  is  essentially  "  fire  and  air  "  and  these  are 
not  transmissible. 

1821.  Walter  Savage  Landor  (1775-1864) 
Immortality   .......  724 

lanthe  ........  724 

Rose  Aylmer  .......  725 

Byron  and  the  Rest          .....  725 

Youth  and  Age        ......  726 

Music   ........  726 

Milton  in  Italy 726 

The  Dying  Fire       ......  727 

Petrarca's  Advice  to  Boccaccio  (The  Pentamerori)  .  727 

LANDOR  is  not  easy  to  place,  for  he  had  an  ineffective  early 
poetical  period  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century.  He  had  made 
a  name  in  one  way  and  another  by  1821,  when  he  settled  in 
Florence  and  entered  upon  his  vast  enterprise,  the  Imaginary 
Conversations.  These  appeared  between  1824  and  1829,  and 
brought  him  the  recognition  of  the  critics.  The  Pentameron  was 
published  in  1837.  His  prose  is  still  read,  but  his  lasting  fame 
rests  upon  his  small  gem-like  poems,  which  have  in  the  highest 
degree  the  classical  and  Jonsonian  elegance. 

1822.  Thomas  Love  Peacock  (1785-1866) 

Mr.  Cypress'  Farewell  (Nightmare  Abbey)  .         .     730 
The  Greenwood  Tree      .....     737 

PEACOCK  wrote  imitative  verse  for  some  years  and  then  spent 
fifteen  years  in  perfecting  a  new  type  of  satirical  novelette. 
The  series,  Headlong  Hall  (1816),  Melincourt  (1817)  and  Night- 
mare Abbey  (1818),  was  crowned  by  Crotchet  Castle  in  1831, 


64  THOMAS   LOVELL  BEDDOES  [1822 

and  this  last  year,  in  the  best  opinion  of  to-day,  is  the  date  of 
Peacock's  arrival  at  maturity.  But  his  contemporaries  took  less 
pleasure  than  we  do  in  these  exquisite  classics,  and  were  more 
attracted  by  Maid  Marian  (1822)  a  "  comic  romance  "  or  rather 
comic  operetta  in  prose  and  verse,  which  has  a  double  interest 
— it  links  The  Beggar's  Opera  with  The  Pirates  of  Penzance, 
and  it  gives  a  most  entertaining  transposition  of  Ivanhoe,  which 
appeared  in  December  1819,  and  (in  spite  of  Peacock's  mistaken 
recollection)  evidently  suggested  a  great  part  of  it. 

1822.   Thomas  Lovell  Beddoes  (1803-49) 

PAGE 

Dream-Pedlary        ......     738 

BEDDOES  published  The  Bride's  Tragedy  in  1822;  his  Death's 
Jest-Book  and  Poems  were  both  published  after  his  death  by 
suicide  in  1849.  The  Jacobean  dramatists,  Cowley  and  Shelley, 
were  his  masters. 

1822*   Winthrop  Mackworth  Praed  (1802-39) 
The  Vicar      .......     738 

PRAED,  "  a  schoolboy  and  undergraduate  of  genius,"  had 
made  a  reputation  by  1822,  and  in  the  following  year  published 
his  Lilian.  His  popular  and  inimitably  witty  light  verse  was 
only  collected  in  1844,  five  years  after  his  premature  death. 
He  is  the  ancestor  of  Barham,  and  also  of  the  more  modern 
school  of  J.  K.  Stephen,  Quiller-Couch,  Owen  Seaman  and 
Alfred  Cochrane,  the  last  of  whom  resembles  him  in  outlook 
as  well  as  in  versification. 

1822*   William  Haditt  (1788-1830) 

Nether  Stowey  and  Linton  (Winterslow)     .         .     741 

HAZLITT  was  diverted  from  the  ministry  to  letters  by  the  visit 
to  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  recorded  in  the  extract  given  here. 
He  produced  articles  and  lectured  on  the  poets  till  he  was  well 
over  40.  He  then  wrote  at  Winterslow  the  two  famous  volumes 
of  Table  Talk  published  1821-2.  The  Liber  Amoris  (1823) 
and  The  Spirit  of  the  Age  (1825)  were  followed  by  a  complete 
failure  with  a  Life  of  Napoleon  Buonaparte  (1828-30)  and  by 
his  death  in  the  latter  year. 


1827]  THOMAS   DE   QUINCEY  65 

1825.    Thomas  Babington  Macaulay  (1800-59) 

PAGE 

The  Armada  .......     745 

The  Critic  and  the  Artist  (Essay  on  John  Dryden)    746 

MACAULAY  made  his  reputation  at  the  age  of  25  with  his 
first  article  in  The  Edinburgh  Review,  1825  (on  Milton).  In 
1830  he  entered  Parliament,  and  after  a  brilliant  career  in 
England  and  India,  published  his  famous  Critical  and  Historical 
Essays  in  1841  (in  America),  his  equally  famous  Lays  of  Ancient 
Rome  in  1842,  and  his  History  of  England  in  1848. 

1827.    George  Darley  (1795-1846) 

Song      .«..«.«.     750 

DARLEY,  between  some  early  verses  and  later  dramas,  published 
two  remarkable  volumes  in  Sylvia  (1827),  a  fairy  plaY»  and 
Nepenthe  (1839),  an  unfinished  rhapsody:  both  are  full  of 
passages  of  rare  and  original  beauty.  The  lyric  here  given  is 
memorable  not  only  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  having  suggested 
to  George  Meredith  both  the  music  and  the  theme  of  his  Love 
in  the  Valley. 

1827.    Thomas  Hood  (1798-1845) 

The  Death-Bed       ......     750 

HOOD  made  his  living  as  a  professional  jester,  but  his  best 
work  is  both  thoughtful  and  deeply  pathetic.  His  chief  pub- 
lication is  his  Plea  of  the  Midsummer  Fairies  (1827),  dedicated 
to  his  friend  Charles  Lamb:  but  he  also  wrote  a  number  of 
beautiful  and  famous  songs. 

1827.    Thomas  De  Quincey  (1785-1859) 

The  English  Classics  in  Education  (Confessions  of 
an  English  Opium-Eatef)        .         .         .         .     751 

By  1827  DE  QUINCEY  had  distinguished  himself  in  the  three 
lines  most  characteristic  of  him:  he  had  published  (at  first 
anonymously)  his  imaginative  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium- 
Eater  (1821),  his  Dialogues  of  Three  Templars  (1824)  on  political 
economy,  and  the  first  of  his  imitations  and  translations  of 

E 


66  FRANCIS  JEFFREY  [1829 

German  romance.  Later  came  his  Autobiographic  Sketches  and 
a  set  of  articles  on  his  friends  Wordsworth,  Coleridge  and  Lamb. 
The  Confessions  he  greatly  enlarged  and  republished  in  1856. 

1829*    Francis  Jeffrey  (1773-1850)  PAGE 

Felicia  Hemans  (Edinburgh  Review,  Oct.  1829)     .     754 

JEFFREY  cannot  be  said  to  have  any  separate  literary  existence 
in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  he  put  forth  from  1802  to  1829  a  kind 
of  "  official  criticism  "  and  may  be  considered  to  have  estab- 
lished his  claim  to  remembrance  before  he  gave  himself  up  to 
the  law,  which  made  a  judge  and  a  peer  of  him.  He  furnishes 
this  Anthology  with  a  review  and  sample  of  Mrs.  Hemans' 
once  famous  work,  not  otherwise  exemplified  here. 

1829*    Captain  Frederick  Marryat  (1792-1848) 

The  Genteel  Boatswain  (Peter  Simple)        .         *     757 

MARRYAT'S  first  and  one  of  his  most  famous  stories  was  Frank 
Mildmay  (1829).  Perhaps  Peter  Simple  (1834)  is  his  master- 
piece— or  Mr.  Midshipman  Easy  (1836) ;  but  he  enjoyed  a 
deserved  and  still  unexhausted  popularity  from  the  first,  and 
has  never  had  a  rival. 

1832*   Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield 
(1804-81) 

Tadpole  and  Taper  (Coningsby)         *         .         *     760 

DISRAELI  made  a  sensation  in  1826  with  Vivian  Grey,  but  his 
real  reputation  began  with  Contarini  Fleming  in  1832.  Of  the 
others,  those  which  have  worn  best  are  Venetia  and  Henrietta 
Temple  (1837),  Coningsby  (1844),  Sybil  (1845)  and  Lothair  (1870), 
and  they  enjoy  to-day  an  even  more  serious  admiration  than 
when  their  insight  had  yet  to  be  approved  by  the  course  of 
history. 

1832*   Edward    Bulwer    Lytton,    Lord    Lytton 
(1803-73) 

The  Final  Shock  (The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii)     .     763 

LYTTON  is  chiefly  remembered  for  his  novels  Eugene  Aram 
(1832),  The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii  (1834),  The  Last  of  the  Barons 


1853]  CHARLES   KINGSLEY  67 

(1843),  The  Caxtons  (1849),  My  Novel  (1853)  and  Kenelm  Chil- 
lingly (1853);  and  his  play  The  Lady  of  Lyons  (1838).  He 
passed  from  Byronics  to  historic  "  tushery,"  and  so  to  the 
domestic  and  autobiographical:  his  last  style  was  his  best,  but 
the  earliest  the  most  popular. 


1833,    Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow  (1807-82) 

PAGE 

My  Lost  Youth       ......     767 

LONGFELLOW  gave  up  poetry  very  early — he  had  been  imitating 
"  his  favourite  poets  from  Gray  to  Byron  " — and  at  24  had 
begun  writing  essays  in  The  North  American  Review  (1831). 
By  1833  he  had  made  a  name,  and  was  publishing  travel  sketches 
in  The  New  England  Magazine — reprinted  in  1835  as  Outre-Mer: 
a  Pilgrimage  beyond  the  Sea.  He  turned  again  to  verse  in  1837, 
and  with  The  Reaper  and  the  Flowers  and  The  Psalm  of  Life  at 
once  convinced  the  public  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  He 
lived  to  write  far  better  poems  than  these,  and  became  im- 
mensely popular.  Opinion  is  now  less  favourable  to  him;  but 
My  Lost  Youth,  here  given,  is  an  irresistible  example  of 
his  charm. 

1833.    Thomas  Carlyle  (1795-1881) 

The  Death  of  the  Protector  (Letters  of  Cromwell)    769 

CARLYLE  wrote  for  the  Edinburgh  from  1827,  and  in  1833 
his  Sartor  Resartus  began  to  appear  serially  in  Eraser's  Magazine : 
the  first  step  in  his  lifelong  mission  of  bringing  the  German 
mind  to  the  understanding  of  the  English.  The  French  Revo- 
lution (1837),  the  Life  and  Letters  of  Oliver  Cromwell  (1845) 
and  the  Life  of  Friedrich  II.  (1858-65),  proved  him  the  first 
historical  genius  of  his  time. 


1853.    Charles  Kingsley  (1819-75) 

Every  Man  to  his  own  Place  (Hypatia)       .         .     774 
The  Sands  of  Dee  (Andromeda  and  other  Poems)  .     780 

KINGSLEY'S  fame  will  always  rest  on  his  two  brilliant  novels, 
Hypatia  (1853)  and  Westward  Ho!    (1854).     By  a  regrettable 


68  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  [1833 

mistake   of  one   figure   he   has    been   placed    in    the  English 
Anthology  at  the  date  1833. 


1833,    Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  (1803-82) 

PAGE 

Brahma.         .  .         .         .         .         .     781 

The  Over-Soul  (Essays)   .         .         .         .         .781 

EMERSON  resigned  the  pastorate  of  the  Second  Church,  Boston, 
in  1832:  he  had  been  writing  poetry  for  some  years,  and  his 
famous  Good-bye,  Proud  World  was  in  1833  generally  believed 
to  refer  to  this  change  in  his  career.  A  denial  has  been  published : 
but  in  any  case  the  existence  of  the  legend  proves  his  repute 
at  this  time.  In  1835  he  settled  at  Concord,  which  thereupon 
became  "  The  Delphi  of  New  England,"  and  on  the  next  anni- 
versary of  the  Concord  fight  he  published  the  celebrated  verses 
on  "  the  embattled  farmers  "  who  "  fired  the  shot  heard  round 
the  world."  He  was  afterwards  known  all  over  the  English- 
speaking  world  as  a  philosopher  and  essayist,  and  was  an  intimate 
friend  of  Longfellow,  Carlyle,  Lowell  and  Thoreau. 


1833*    Alfred  Tennyson,  Lord  Tennyson  (1809- 
1892) 

Mariana         .......     784 

The  Lady  of  Shalott        .         .         .         .         .786 

Song  of  the  Lotos-Eaters          .         .         .         .     791 

O  that  'twere  possible      .....     795 

TENNYSON  was  only  24  when  his  fame  was  established  by 
his  second  volume  of  Poems  (1833).  It  contained,  among  many 
wonderful  pieces  glowing  with  a  kind  of  Pre-Raphaelite  beauty, 
the  second  and  third  here  given,  The  Lady  of  Shalott  and  the 
choric  song  of  The  Lotos-Eaters}  our  first,  Mariana,  had  been 
published  in  1830.  The  fourth,  an  echo  of  Webster,  appeared 
in  The  Germ.  In  his  boyhood  Tennyson  worshipped  Byron: 
but  he  was  soon  seen  to  be  far  nearer  to  Keats.  Afterwards  he 
ransacked  the  classics  (e.g.  Lucretius  and  Tithonus),  Dante  (for 
Ulysses)  and  the  great  English  lyrists  (see  note  on  Sidney,  and 
Carew's  "  Ask  me  no  more,"  English  Anthology,  p.  338,  etc.). 


1839]  CHARLES   DARWIN  69 

1839.   Edgar  Allan  Poe  (1809-49) 

Annabel  Lee  .......     795 

In  1839  POE  published  in  Boston  his  Tales  of  the  Grotesque 
and  the  Arabesque,  followed  by  The  Gold  Bug  and  an  article 
on  Cryptography.  In  1841  he  published  a  prediction  of  the 
plot  of  Barnaby  Rudge,  deduced  from  the  introductory  chapters, 
which  is  said  to  have  caused  Dickens  to  ask  Poe  if  he  was  the 
devil.  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  appeared  the  same  year. 
In  1845  he  made  his  poetic  fame  with  The  Raven,  immediately 
reprinted  in  a  volume  with  the  same  name;  but  Annabel  Lee 
afterwards  surpassed  it  in  popularity.  Poe's  view  of  poetry 
was  a  perverse  one;  he  declared  that  beauty  was  its  sole  object, 
and  also  that  "  a  long  poem  is  a  contradiction  in  terms."  He 
himself  aimed  "  not  to  tell  a  story  but  to  produce  an  effect : 
and  in  poetry  not  to  convey  an  idea,  but  to  make  an  impression." 
The  influence  of  this  theory  may  be  clearly  traced  in  R.  L. 
Stevenson's  work. 


1837.    Charles  Dickens  (1812-70) 

Mr.  Pickwick  on  the  Ice  (Posthumous  Papers  of 

the  Pickwick  Club)     .....     797 

DICKENS  took  his  place  among  the  great  creators  when  he 
published  The  Posthumous  Papers  of  the  Pickwick  Club,  in  1837. 
He  was  for  the  remaining  years  of  his  life  by  far  the  most  popular 
writer  of  the  age,  and  his  books  are  powerful  to-day  as  far  as 
Russia  and  the  cities  of  China. 


1839.    Charles  Darwin  (1809-82) 

The  Cocos  Islands  (Voyage  of  the  "  Beagle  ")       .     801 

DARWIN'S  first  publication  was  A  Naturalist's  Voyage  Round 
the  World  (1839),  better  known  as  the  Voyage  of  the  "  Beagle." 
This  is  from  the  literary  point  of  view  as  good  as  anything  he 
ever  wrote;  the  passage  here  given  is  a  vivid  description  of  the 
islands  where  the  Emden  met  her  fate  on  November  9,  1914. 
An  idea  which  had  occurred  to  Darwin  during  his  voyage  in 
the  Beagle  was  afterwards  followed  out  in  The  Origin  of  Species 
(1859),  a  book  of  world-wide  and  lasting  fame. 


70  WALT   WHITMAN  [1843 

1843.   Walt  Whitman  (1819-92) 

^^  y     y    '  PAGE 

A  Sight  in  Camp     ......     804 

As  toilsome  I  wander'd  Virginia's  Woods  .         .     805 
O  Captain !  my  Captain !  806 

In  1843  WHITMAN,  who  had  been  a  printer,  schoolmaster, 
editor,  carpenter  and  builder,  published  a  wonderful  poem  in 
a  wholly  new  mood  and  manner,  with  the  title  of  Blood-Money. 
Here,  in  lines  of  the  now  famous  unprosodical  cadence,  is  the 
democratic  or  humane  passion  expressed  already  with  perfect 
simplicity  and  success.  Remembering  this,  I  have  made  the 
mistake  of  assigning  Whitman's  first  influence  to  the  same  year 
as  that  of  Ruskin  and  of  Mill.  He  would  be  more  consistently 
placed  in  1855,  when  his  Leaves  of  Grass  brought  him  fame 
and  vituperation  at  once,  and  gave  him  potent  influence — 
for  both  good  and  ill — in  the  development  of  English  poetry. 
(Professor  Santayana  writes  of  The  Poetry  of  Barbarism  [Whitman 
and  Browning]  in  Poetry  and  Religion,  1900.) 

1843.    George  Borrow  (1803-81) 

At  Tangier  (The  Bible  in  Spain)         .         .         .     806 

BORROW  made  his  reputation  in  1843  with  his  Bible  in  Spain, 
an  original  and  entertaining  book  of  travel.  His  more  imaginative 
works,  Lavengro  (1851)  and  The  Romany  Rye  (1857),  are  both 
picturesque  and  valuable  for  their  scenes  of  gipsy  life. 

1843.    John  Ruskin  (1819-1900) 

The  Greek's  Notion  of  a  God  (Modern  Painters) .     811 
German  Philosophy  (Appendix  to  Modern  Painters)  813 

RUSKIN'S  Modern  Painters  (1843)  was  published  without  his 
name,  but  speedily  gained  for  him  a  reputation  greater  than 
that  ever  enjoyed  by  any  other  writer  on  art  in  this  country. 
Vols.  III.  and  IV.  were  added  in  1856  and  Vol.  V.  in  1860. 

1843.    John  Stuart  Mill  (1806-73) 

On  Thought  and  Discussion  (On  Liberty)  .         .     816 

MILL  lives  by  his  System  of  Logic,  Ratiocinative  and  Inductive 
(1843),  his  Principles  of  Polical  Economy  (1848)  and  his  Liberty 
(1859):  works  not  only  scientifically  important  but  written 
with  admirable  clearness  and  vigour. 


1847]  EMILY  BRONTE  71 

1844.    Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  (1806-61) 

PAGE 

Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese    .         .         .         .821 

ELIZABETH  BARRETT'S  two  volumes  of  Poems,  published  in 
1844,  "  placed  her  for  the  first  time  among  the  foremost  living 
poets  "  (E.  Gosse).  "  There  is  scarcely  any  writer  in  English 
deserving  the  name  of  poet,  who  illustrates  by  defect  the  import- 
ance of  poetic  style  so  well  as  Mrs.  Browning  "  (G.  Saintsbury). 
But  her  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese,  written  to  Robert  Browning 
during  their  engagement  (1846)  have  never  suffered  detraction, 
and  the  earlier  part  of  Aurora  Leigh  (1856)  remains  delightful 
reading. 

1847,    Charlotte  Bronte  (1816-55) 

Jane  Eyre's  Home  (Jane  Eyre)  ,         .         .     822 

The  vivid,  obscure,  pathetic  lives  of  the  three  Bronte  sisters 
make  up  one  of  the  great  stories  of  the  literary  world.  In  1846, 
as  "  Currer,  Ellis  and  Acton  Bell,"  they  failed  with  a  joint 
volume  of  Poems.  In  1847,  in  circumstances  of  great  distress, 
Charlotte  (Currer)  published  Jane  Eyre,  Emily  (Ellis)  Wuthering 
Heights,  and  Anne  (Acton)  Agnes  Grey  (which  she  followed 
up  in  1848  with  The  Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hall).  In  December 
1848  Emily  died,  and  Anne  in  May  1849;  Charlotte  in  complete 
loneliness  wrote  Shirley.  Jane  Eyre  had  been  completely  success- 
ful from  the  first.  She  now  went  to  London  and  Brussels,  pub- 
lished Villette  in  1853,  married  in  1854,  and  died  in  1855.  Her 
books  are  filled  with  an  intensity  of  feeling  and  pictorial  power 
unknown  till  then  in  English  fiction. 

1847.    Emily  Bronte  (1818-48) 

A  Pleasant  Family  Circle  (Wuthering  Heights)      .     825 
The  Prisoner  ......     829 

Last  Lines      .......     830 

EMILY  BRONTE  was  a  less  competent  novelist  than  Charlotte, 
but  an  even  more  pov/erful  one.  There  is  no  forgetting  "  that 
sinister  and  incongruous  but  infinitely  fascinating  tragedy," 
Wuthering  Heights.  Greater  still  and  more  certain  of  perpetual 
fame  are  her  poems :  the  two  here  given  are  among  those  which 
for  perfection  of  form,  expressing  profound  spiritual  emotion, 
must  always  be  counted  among  the  greatest  we  possess. 


72      WILLIAM  MAKEPEACE  THACKERAY  [1848 

1848.  William  Makepeace  Thackeray  (1811-63) 

PAGE 

Esmond's  Homecoming  (The  History  of  Henry 

Esmond)  .......     831 

THACKERAY  wrote  from  1836  in  Fraser's  Magazine  and  Punch, 
but  it  was  not  till  1847-8  that  he  suddenly  achieved  an  immense 
success  with  Vanity  Fair.  Pendennis  followed  in  1849-50,  and 
Esmond,  his  second  masterpiece,  in  1852.  The  Newcomes  (1853- 
55)  and  The  Virginians  (1858-9),  the  Cornhill  essays  called  The 
Roundabout  Papers  (1860-2)  and  the  burlesque  fairy-tale  The 
Rose  and  the  Ring  (1855),  all  contributed  to  give  Thackeray 
a  reputation  in  England  and  America  which  challenged  that 
of  Dickens. 

1849.  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  (1819-61) 

Say  not  the  Struggle  naught  availeth .         .         .     837 
Where  lies  the  Land 837 

CLOUGH  is  a  more  interesting  poet  than  some  who  have  been 
more  completely  successful  in  expression.  His  most  popular 
poem  is  his  original  and  entertaining  Bothie  of  Tober-na-Vuolich 
(1849).  It  is  criticised  for  the  "  badness  "  of  its  hexameters : 
but  Clough  showed  in  his  still  more  charming  verse-novel 
Amours  de  Voyage  that  he  thoroughly  understood  Latin  prosody 
and  used  it  as  he  chose.  The  first  of  the  short  poems  here  given 
has  long  been  in  all  anthologies:  the  second  makes  an  inter- 
esting comparison  with  the  "Whither,  O  Splendid  Ship"  of 
Mr.  Bridges. 

Clough  died  in  1861,  and  his  friend  Matthew  Arnold  honoured 
him  with  his  beautiful  Thyrsis — the  elegy  which  by  common 
consent  makes  a  third  with  Lycidas  and  Adonais. 

1854.    Cardinal  John  Henry  Newman  (1801-90) 

The    Definition    of    a    Gentleman    (University 

Education)        .  .....     838 

NEWMAN'S  reputation  during  his  life  was  rather  that  of  a 
theologian  and  controversialist  than  a  literary  man:  yet  both 
his  prose  and  verse  always  had  distinction.  His  name  as  a  writer 
will  be  remembered  for  his  volume  on  The  Idea  of  a  Catholic 


1855]  ROBERT  BROWNING  73 

University  (he  was  appointed  rector  of  the  new  Roman  Catholic 
University  in  Dublin,  in  1854),  his  Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua  (1864) 
and  his  hymn  "  Lead,  kindly  light." 

1854*    Frederick  Tennyson  (1807-98) 

The  Holy  Tide 840 

FREDERICK  TENNYSON  was  Alfred's  eldest  brother:  the  first 
of  his  poems  were  included  in  the  Poems  by  Two  Brothers  (1826): 
the  best  were  published  in  his  own  volume  Days  and  Hours  (1854). 

1854,  Coventry  Patmore  (1823-96) 

Unthrift 841 

The  Revelation        .         .         .         .         .         .841 

The  Foreign  Land  ......     843 

The  Married  Lover          .....     842 

PATMORE  made  his  name  in  1854  with  The  Angel  in  the  House, 
a  domestic  story  in  verse,  raised  and  beautified  by  interludes  of 
lyric  epigram.  These  original  and  unsurpassed  pieces  delighted 
Ruskin,  Bridges  and  other  friends  and  critics;  but  the  whole 
poem  has  been  decried  by  many  and  mercilessly  parodied  by 
Swinburne.  The  Unknown  Eros  (1877)  and  other  poems  are 
more  difficult  but  not  less  distinguished. 

1855.  Robert  Browning  (1812-89) 

Home-Thoughts,  from  Abroad          .         .         .  843 

A  Woman's  Last  Word 844 

A  Toccata  of  Galuppi's    .....  846 

By  the  Fire-side 848 

In  a  Gondola 856 

BROWNING  was  late  in  arriving  at  anything  like  fame  or 
influence.  His  first  play,  Strafford  (1836),  ran  for  five  nights: 
his  long  poem,  Sordello  (1840),  was  received  with  howls.  A 
Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon  (1843)  produced  only  a  quarrel  with  Mac- 
ready,  and  in  1852  he  was  duped  into  publishing  a  critical 
Introduction  to  a  volume  of  forged  "  Letters  by  Shelley."  But 
in  1855,  when  he  and  his  wife,  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning,  had 
been  living  for  eight  years  in  narrow  circumstances  in  Italy,  his 


74  ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  [1855 

Men  and  Women  finally  carried  conviction  and  cast  a  favourable 
light  back  upon  the  Dramatic  Lyrics  of  1842  and  Dramatic 
Romances  of  1845 — evidences  which,  as  Mr.  Saintsbury  says, 
"  should  have  settled  the  question  "  before.  The  Ring  and  the 
Book  (1868),  in  four  volumes  and  20,000  lines,  is  a  dramatic 
story  of  crime  and  helpless  innocence,  treated  with  an  inex- 
haustible humanity  and  a  profound  psychological  insight  which 
have  never  been  equalled  in  poetry. 

Browning  was  for  many  years  pitted  against  Tennyson,  as 
Dickens  was  against  Thackeray,  by  their  contemporaries  and 
partisans.  The  perfection  of  Tennyson's  form  (which  is  no 
superficial  matter)  will  save  his  best  but  not  probably  the  larger 
part  of  his  work.  Browning's  strength  does  not  lie  there  (though 
his  form  is  the  true  expression  of  his  spirit),  but  in  his  extra- 
ordinary intensity  and  sincerity  of  feeling  and  thought.  Where 
Tennyson  looks  on  and  judges  life  from  a  refined  and  at  times 
even  sentimental  retirement,  Browning  goes  down  into  the  fight 
or  the  carnival,  "  sublimating  passion  and  creating  truth." 


1855,    Anthony  Trollope  (1815-82) 


PAGE 


Who  shall  be  Cock  of  the  Walk?'    (Barchester 

Towers)  .......     856 

ANTHONY  TROLLOPE  began  the  series  of  his  admirable  and 
successful  novels  with  The  Warden  (1855)  and  Barchester  Towers 
(1857).  Framley  Parsonage  was  commissioned  by  Thackeray 
for  the  new  Cornhill  (1860),  and  The  Last  Chronicle  of  Bar  set 
appeared  in  1867:  perhaps  the  best  of  all. 

1855.    Matthew  Arnold  (1822-88) 

The  Scholar-Gipsy 860 

The  Function  of  Criticism  (Essays  in  Criticism)    .     867 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD'S  Strayed  Reveller  attracted  little  attention 
in  1849,  and  his  Empedocles  on  Etna  (1852)  was  speedily  with- 
drawn from  circulation.  His  position  as  a  poet  was  secured  in 
1855,  when  he  completed  the  issue  of  his  two  volumes  of  Poems. 
In  1857  he  became  Professor  of  Poetry  at  Oxford;  and  in  1865 
appeared  his  famous  Essays  in  Criticism.  His  best  verse  has  a 
charm  of  an  unusual  kind :  a  mixed  descent  may  be  traced  from 
the  Greek  tragedies,  from  Spenser,  and  from  Heine. 


1859]  EDWARD  FITZGERALD  75 

1858,  William  (Johnson)  Cory  (1823-92) 

Mimnermus  in  Church    .....     869 
Heraclitus       .......     870 

WILLIAM  CORY  (born  Johnson)  published  in  1858  the  first 
part  of  his  lonica  —  short  poems  full  of  classical  beauty  and 
romantic  ardour. 

1859  (1850).    Nathaniel  Hawthorne  (1804-64) 
A  View  of  Rome  in  1859  (Transformation)  .         .     871 

HAWTHORNE'S  greatest  book,  Transformation  (originally  drafted 
as  The  Marble  Faun),  was  finished  in  1859  and  published  in 
Boston  and  London  in  1860.  But  he  was  already  famous  as  the 
author  of  The  Scarlet  Letter,  a  gloomy  study  of  New  England 
Puritanism  (1850),  and  of  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  (1851), 
and  The  Blithedale  Romance  (1852).  For  the  great  influence 
of  his  original  and  imaginative  quality  see  the  note  on  Short- 
house,  post,  1880. 

1859.  George  Meredith  (1828-1909) 

Hymn  to  Colour     ......     874 

Ferdinand  and  Miranda  (The  Ordeal  of  Richard 

Feverel)  .......     877 

GEORGE  MEREDITH  made  his  fame  as  a  novelist  with  Richard 
Feverel  (1859)  and  as  a  poet  with  Modern  Love  (1862),  a  story 
of  tragic  misunderstanding  told  in  a  sonnet-sequence  of  extra- 
ordinary power.  His  novels  owed  something  to  the  work  of 
his  father-in-law  Peacock  (supra,  1822,  and  English  Anthology, 
pp.  730-7).  His  own  prose  style  has  influenced  many  writers, 
(see  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett's  The  Stooping  Lady)  :  his  poetry 
towards  the  end  of  the  century  succeeded  Browning's  as  the 
gospel  of  the  rising  generation. 

1859.    Edward  FitsGerald  (1809-83) 

Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam  of  Naishapur  .     885 

FITZGERALD'S  Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Khayyam  was  published  in 
1859.  Though  unsuccessful  until  rediscovered  by  Rossetti, 


76  CHARLES  READE  [1861 

Houghton  and  Swinburne,  and  not  popular  until  years  after- 
wards, it  is  the  everlasting  monument  of  his  fame:  a  work  of 
original  genius,  built  out  of  fragments  from  the  Persian,  and 
bringing  an  entirely  new  influence  into  English  poetry. 


1861.    Charles  Reade  (1818-84) 

PAGE 

The  Meeting  of  Erasmus  and  his  Father  (The 

Cloister  and  the  Hearth)     .         .         .         .     894 

Several  of  CHARLES  READE'S  books  achieved  wide  popularity, 
his  It  is  Never  too  Late  to  Mend  as  early  as  1856.  But  The 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth  (1861)  is  one  of  the  greatest  historical 
novels  ever  written  and  gives  him  his  place  in  literature. 


1 86 1,    Christina  Rossetti  (1830-94) 

Dream  Land  ..,..,.  900 

At  Home        .......  901 

An  End          .......  902 

Song 903 

CHRISTINA  ROSSETTI,  sister  of  D.  G.  Rossetti,  contributed 
(as  "Ellen  Allegra  ")  to  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Germ  in  1850;  but 
reached  her  high  position  by  her  Goblin  Market  and  Other  Poems 
(1861),  which  contained  all  four  of  the  exquisite  pieces  here 
given.  Her  greatness  lies  not  in  her  superiority  to  all  her  pre- 
decessors of  her  own  sex,  but  in  the  new  beauty  and  depth  of 
emotion  which  she  joined  to  the  mystical  piety  of  the  school 
of  Vaughan  and  Crashaw. 


1860-5.    Thomas  Henry  Huxley  (1825-95) 

What  is  Certain  (Descartes'  Discourse  on  Method)       903 

HUXLEY'S  greatest  and  most  lasting  influence  dates  from  the 
years  1860-5,  m  which  he  not  only  championed  the  cause  of 
Darwin  as  no  one  else  could  have  done,  but  published  a  re- 
markable series  of  essays  and  addresses  fearlessly  applying  the 
principles  of  Cartesian  criticism  and  contending  for  freedom  of 
thought  in  that  direction.  The  directness,  lucidity  and  uncon- 


1866]  WILLIAM   MORRIS  77 

scious  elegance  of  his  style  may  be  judged  from  the  extract 
here  given:  no  Englishman  has  ever  written  or  spoken  so  well 
on  scientific  subjects. 


1865.    Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  (1837-1909) 

PAGE 

Chorus  (Atalanta  in  Calydon)  ....  907 
From  The  Triumph  of  Time  ....  908 
Tristram  and  Iseult  (Tristram  of  Lyonesse)  .  910 

SWINBURNE  first  intoxicated  readers  of  poetry  in  1865  with 
his  Atalanta  in  Calydon,  the  like  of  whose  choruses  had  never 
been  heard  in  English  verse.  In  1866  his  Poems  and  Ballads, 
like  a  beaker  full  of  the  warm  South,  produced  an  even  stronger 
effect.  This  volume  contained  The  Triumph  of  Time,  from  which 
nine  famous  stanzas  are  here  taken.  Tristram  of  Lyonesse  (1882) 
should  be  compared  with  Matthew  Arnold's  Tristram  and  Iseult 
(1852),  Tennyson's  Last  Tournament  (1872),  and  Mr.  Laurence 
Binyon's  Death  of  Tristram  in  his  Odes  (1901). 


1866.    William  Morris  (1834-99) 

The  Defence  of  Guenevere       .         .         .         .912 

The  Flight  of  the  Argonauts  (The  Life  and  Death 

of  Jason)  ......     914 

Prologue  to  The  Earthly  Paradise       .         .         .916 
April  (The  Earthly  Paradise)     ,         .         .         .917 
May  (The  Earthly  Paradise)      .         .         .         .     917 

November  (The  Earthly  Paradise)      .         .         .918 
The  Hollow  Land  .         .         .         .         .     919 

WILLIAM  MORRIS  published  in  1858  The  Defence  of  Guenevere, 
the  firstfruits  of  a  new  and  splendid  genius  which  had  not  yet 
ripened.  In  1866  he  reaped  a  full  harvest  with  The  Life  and 
Death  of  Jason:  in  1868-70  he  showed  himself  to  be  the  direct 
(and  the  greatest)  descendant  of  Chaucer,  by  producing  the  four 
volumes  of  The  Earthly  Paradise,  a  vast  series  of  classical  and 
romantic  tales,  the  like  of  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  English. 
In  1873  appeared  the  fascinating  mystery-play  Love  is  Enough: 


78  "  GEORGE  ELIOT"  [1858 

in  1877  Sigurd  the  Volsung,  the  most  heroic  and  faultless  of  the 
few  epics  we  possess.  In  1891  he  collected  in  Poems  by  the  Way 
the  shorter  pieces  of  his  last  poetical  period,  and  showed  a  new 
and  even  deeper  originality. 

His  seven  prose  romances — The  House  of  the  Wolfings,  etc. 
(1889-98) — are  almost  equally  distinguished:  they  too  combine 
his  romantic  charm  with  his  peculiar  intensity  of  imagination. 
Their  English  is  a  fifteenth-century  style  adapted  to  scenes 
mainly  of  a  Scandinavian  character.  Another  mood  produced 
the  wonderful  mediaeval  Dream  of  John  Ball  (1888)  and  the 
prophetic  dream  of  News  from  Nowhere  (1891),  embodying  the 
Socialistic  faith  of  a  heart  too  noble  for  the  world  of  his  time: 
the  only  great  allegorical  pieces  since  The  Pilgrim's  Progress. 
The  marvellous  fantasy  of  colour  and  sound  called  The  Hollow 
Land  he  contributed  to  The  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine  in 
his  undergraduate  days,  and  it  was  only  reprinted  after  his  death. 

See  notes  on  Lord  Berners,  ante,  1523,  and  More,  1535. 


1858.   "  George  Eliot  "  (1819-80) 

PAGE 

Miss  Brooke  and  Mr.  Casaubon  (MiddlemarcK)    .     923 

44  GEORGE  ELIOT  "  (Mary  Ann  Evans)  fulfilled  the  promise  of 
her  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  (1857)  by  the  complete  success  of  her 
Amos  Barton  (1858),  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  (1860)  and  Silas 
Marner  (1861).  She  reached  the  summit  of  popularity  by  the 
publication  of  Middlemarch  (1871),  a  novel  of  unsurpassed  power 
in  the  delineation  of  provincial  English  society  and  the  characters 
moving  in  it.  She  is  here  placed  too  late,  as  Kingsley  is  placed 
too  early,  by  a  typographical  error  of  a  single  figure.  It  is  greatly 
regretted  that  (after  900  pages)  the  proof-corrector  should  have 
nodded:  and  equally  that  of  many  thousand  readers,  not  one 
(in  twelve  months)  should  have  observed  and  pointed  out 
the  mistake. 


1869*   James  Anthony  Froude  (1818-94) 

i 

An  Estimate  of  Disraeli  (Life  of  Benjamin  Disraeli)     931 

FROUDE  from  1867  was  writing  his  admirable  Short  Studies 
on  Great  Subjects,  but  they  were  not  collected  till  1883.  Mean- 
while he  made  his  reputation  by  his  History  of  England  from 


1872]  ANDREW  LANG  79 

the  Fall  of  Wolsey  to  the  Defeat  of  the  Armada  in  twelve  volumes, 
completed  in  1869.  A  more  popular  success  was  his  English 
Seamen  in  the  Sixteenth  Century.  A  brilliant,  inaccurate,  pug- 
nacious writer,  with  a  great  natural  gift  of  style. 


1870.    Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  (1828-82) 


PAGE 


The  Blessdd  Damozel      .         .         .         .         •  935 

The  Portrait  ......  939 

Lovesight       .......  942 

The  Birth-Bond 942 

Secret  Parting          ......  943 

ROSSETTI  (Gabriel  Charles  Dante,  known  as  Dante  Gabriel) 
wrote  some  of  his  best  poems  before  1862,  but  in  that  year 
buried  the  MS.  in  his  wife's  grave.  Seven  years  afterwards  it 
was  disinterred  by  permission  of  the  Home  Secretary,  and  the 
Poems  were  published  in  1870.  Rossetti,  who  had  been  a  co- 
founder  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood  in  1849,  was  already 
a  famous  painter,  and  was  now  recognised  as  a  poet  of  genius. 
The  Blessed  Damozel  is  his  most  admired  single  poem;  The 
Portrait  his  best  and  most  profoundly  sincere;  but  his  fame 
lives  in  his  House  of  Life,  a  sonnet-sequence  which  stands  nearest 
to  Shakespeare's  own. 


1872.    Andrew  Lang  (1844-1912) 

The  Odyssey  ......     943 

Ballade  of  the  Book-hunter       ....     944 

ANDREW  LANG  was  a  many-sided  and  gifted  man  of  letters 
who  made  his  mark  as  a  writer  of  delicate  verse  in  old  French 
forms.  His  Ballads  and  Lyrics  of  Old  France  (1872),  Ballades 
in  Blue  China  (1880),  Rhymes  a  la  Mode  and  Ballads  and  Verses 
Vain  (1884)  all  had  an  immense  vogue,  and  with  his  literary 
essays,  studies  in  Scottish  history,  the  Greek  Epic  and  political 
biography,  gave  him  the  character  of  an  Admirable  Crichton. 
The  first  sonnet  here  given  was  first  printed  at  the  beginning 
of  the  masterly  Translation  of  the  Odyssey  (1878),  in  which 
he  collaborated  with  Professor  Henry  Butcher. 


8o  THOMAS   HARDY  [1872 

1872.    Thomas  Hardy  (born  1841)  PAGE 

Going  the  Rounds  ( Under  the  Greenwood  Tree)    .  945 

Hap       ........  951 

She,  to  Him  .......  953 

Friends  Beyond       ......  953 

The  Sleep-worker  .         .         .         .         .         »  954 

To  an  Unborn  Pauper  Child     .         .         .         •  955 

The  Division           ......  956 

The  End  of  the  Episode  .         .         .         .         .956 

The  Ballad-singer   .         .         .         .         .         •  957 

His  Education         ......  957 

The  Phantom  Horsewoman      ....  958 

Men  who  March  Away    .....  959 

On  a  Midsummer  Eve     .....  960 

The  Oxen      .......  961 

Great  Things.         .         .         .         .         .         .961 

In  Time  of  "  The  Breaking  of  Nations  "    .         .  962 

MR.  HARDY'S  fame  as  a  novelist  began  with  his   Under  the 
Greenwood  Tree  (1872)  and  A  Pair  of  Blue  Eyes  (1872-3);   the 
great  series  of  seventeen  volumes  ended  with  Ju.de  the  Obscure 
(1895)  and  The  Well-Beloved  (1897,  a  reprint).    As  a  poet  he 
only  became  known  in  1898,  when  his  Wessex  Poems  (written 
1865-97)  appeared;    they  were  followed  by  Poems  of  the  Past 
and  Present  (1901).     Then  came  the  gigantic  "  epic-drama  " 
The  Dynasts  (1903,  1906,  1908);    then  Time's  Laughing-Stocks 
(1909),  Satires  of  Circumstance  (1911  and  1914)  and  Moments 
of  Vision  (1917).    The  Dynasts  stands  alone  in  English  literature 
and  no  extract  of  moderate  length  could  do  it  justice;   but  by 
Mr.  Hardy's  generosity  and  personal  help  we  have  here  one 
of  his  most  characteristic  prose  scenes  and  a  set  of  fifteen  shorter 
poems  which  well  illustrate  one  side,  and  many  different  lights 
and  shades,  of  his  genius.    He  ranges  in  these  from  the  sombre 
^Sschylean  mood,  in  which  he  has  many  times  appealed  for 
Man  against  his  gods,  to  a  rare  joy  of  life  and  an  exquisite 
tenderness  of  love.    Throughout  his  work  he  is  like  Shakespeare 
in  more  ways  than  one :  he  is  essentially  moral  in  his  judgments 
of  life;    yet  he  makes  his  sun  to  shine  upon  just  and  unjust 
alike :  he  is  like  him  also  in  two  special  gifts — in  his  absolute 
possession  of  the  landscape  and  the  humour  of  the  English 


1873]  WALTER   HORATIO  PATER  81 

countryside,  and  in  the  power  of  making  lyric  beauty  out  of 
common  words.  His  best  poems  are  of  that  highest  order, 
whose  magic  lies  in  "  the  sound  of  the  meaning  ";  his  best 
prose  is  a  part  of  the  deeper  history  of  his  own  country. 

1873.    Austin  Dobson  (1840-1921) 

The  'Squire  at  Vauxhall  .....     963 

DOBSON,  like  Lang,  was  first  known  as  a  writer  of  finely 
wrought  verse:  Vignettes  in  Rhyme  (1873),  Proverbs  in  Porcelain 
(1877),  Old-World  Idylls  (1883),  At  the  Sign  of  the  Lyre  (1885) 
— the  well-chosen  titles  characterise  the  contents,  but  cannot 
convey  the  extreme  charm  and  delicacy  of  the  talent  they 
exhibit — the  talent  of  a  fine  workman  "  whose  limitations  were 
never  known  because  he  never  exceeded  them."  His  Essays 
have  the  same  exquisiteness  of  urbanity  and  scholarship. 

1873.    Edmund  Gosse  (born  1849) 

Lying  in  the  Grass  .....     966 

The  Child  Alone  (Father  and  Son)     .         .         .968 

MR.  GOSSE  was  Dobson's  junior  by  nine  years,  but  his  con- 
temporary in  literature  and  at  the  Board  of  Trade.  He  too 
first  came  forward  as  a  poet:  his  five  volumes,  On  Viol  and 
Flute  (1870),  King  Erik  (1876),  Ne\v  Poems  (1879),  Firdausi 
in  Exile  (1885),  In  Russet  and  Silver  (1894),  were  collected  into 
one  in  1896,  and  admirably  exemplify  his  wide  culture  and 
fastidious  workmanship.  His  prose  work  includes  Lives  of 
Gray,  Cowper,  Donne,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
and  Swinburne,  and  many  volumes  of  literary  essays,  some  of 
which — e.g.,  Critical  Kit-cats  (1896),  French  Profiles  (1905), 
Portraits  and  Studies  (1912) — are  brilliant  examples  of  a  new 
biographical  method,  personal,  picturesque,  and  highly  finished. 
In  his  unique  Father  and  Son  (1907),  which  was  crowned  by 
the  French  Academy  in  1913,  he  carried  this  method  to  the 
extreme  of  perfection,  painting  both  his  subject  and  himself 
at  once. 

1873.    Walter  Horatio  Pater  (1839-94) 

The     Religion     of     TEsculapius     (Marias     the 

Epicurean)        .         .         .         .         .         •     971 

PATER'S  inspiration  came  from  Ruskin,  but  his  Studies  in 

the  History  of  the  Renaissance  (1873)  revealed  a  very  different 

F 


82  HENRY  JAMES  [1875 

style  and  philosophy,  and  became  at  once  a  causa  belli  among 
critics  and  moralists.  Equally  original,  fascinating  and  per- 
turbing were  his  Marias  the  Epicurean  (1885),  Imaginary 
Portraits  (1887),  Appreciations  (1889),  Plato  and  Platonism 
(1893)  and  Greek  Studies  (1895).  The  verdict  of  the  public 
was  that  he  was  a  Decadent  who  gave  new  life  to  English  culture, 
and  a  Euphuist  whose  characteristic  style  was  of  a  grave  and 
religious  beauty. 

1875.    Henry  James  (1843-1915)  PAGE 

A  Vision  of  English  Society  (The  Sacred  Fount)   .     974 

HENRY  JAMES  gained  a  reputation  and  a  certain  measure  of 
popularity  with  his  novel  Roderick  Hudson  (1875),  afterwards 
concluded  in  his  Princess  Casamassima  (1886).  These  and  others 
of  their  period  are  brilliant  and  lucid  stories  of  character,  but 
James's  subtle  curiosity  and  multiple  insight  demanded  a  more 
complete  expression  of  shades  and  values  which  few  but  him- 
self perceived.  His  later  books  were  more  and  more  relished 
by  the  few  and  derided  by  the  many.  The  Sacred  Fount  (1901), 
The  Wings  of  the  Dove  and  The  Golden  Bowl  (1905)  form  perhaps 
the  shibboleth  of  this  battle;  but  like  other  shibboleths  it  may 
be  disregarded  (as  such)  by  all  who  choose  to  be  non-combatants. 
Henry  James  did  much  for  the  novel  of  character;  and  in  spite 
of  his  objective  and  almost  surgical  method,  he  has  left  in  his 
work  the  record  of  a  great  and  charitable  nature  as  well  as  of 
a  highly  original  artistic  impulse. 

1878*    Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (1850-94) 
The  Literary  Gymnastic  ("A  College  Magazine  " — 

Memories  and  Portraits)      .  977 

The  Vagabond        ......     980 

The  House  Beautiful        .         .         .         .         .981 

Requiem         .......     982 

To  S.  R.  Crockett 983 

STEVENSON  (Robert  Lewis  Balfour,  afterwards  called  Robert 
Louis)  wrote  in  magazines  for  some  time  before  he  published 
An  Inland  Voyage  (1878)  and  Travels  with  a  Donkey  (1879). 
Essays  followed,  then  the  New  Arabian  Nights  (1882)  and 
Treasure  Island  (1883).  These  all  formed  a  crescendo  of  success, 
and  R.  L.  S.  was  the  most  popular  writer  of  his  time  when  he 
produced  in  rapid  and  profitable  succession  Prince  Otto  (1885) 
(originally  drafted  as  Semiramis  :  a  Tragedy),  Dr.  Jekyll  and 


i88o]  ROBERT  BRIDGES  83 

Mr.  Hyde  (1886),  Kidnapped  (1887),  The  Black  Arrow  (1888), 
The  Master  of  Ballantrae  (1889)  and  Catriona  (1893).  In  1887 
Memories  and  Portraits  appeared,  and  a  volume  of  verse,  Under- 
woods, both  full  of  personal  charm.  In  1889  Stevenson  went 
to  live  in  Samoa,  where  he  wrote  two  memorable  volumes,  A 
Footnote  to  History  (1892)  and  Island  Nights'  Entertainments 
(1893),  and  the  delightful  Vailima  Letters,  published  in  1895 
after  his  death. 

Stevenson  pleases  most  when  he  is  most  himself,  least  when 
he  is  too  visibly  concocting  effects  of  style.  He  has  told  us  in 
the  Essay  on  A  College  Magazine  of  his  early  habit  of  "  playing 
the  sedulous  ape  "  to  the  masters  of  the  past.  He  was  only  doing 
what  Ben  Jonson  advised  (see  the  passage  on  style  in  English 
Anthology,  p.  255),  but  the  result  in  many  places — and  even 
in  his  fine  fragment  Weir  of  Hermiston  (1893-4) — is  a  sudden 
suspicion  of  something  histrionic  or  affected,  a  jar  to  the  affec- 
tionate admiration  of  his  most  attached  readers.  If  only  he 
had  lived  to  write  "  A  Footnote  to  the  History  of  Style  " ! 

1880,    William  Ernest  Henley  (1849-1903) 

PAGE 

On  Hazlitt 983 

Apparition      .......     987 

Margaritas  Sorori     ......     988 

HENLEY  made  his  name  between  1877  and  1890  as  a  journalist 
and  editor  of  uncommon  style  and  vigour.  His  Poems  (1888, 
1898,  1901)  are  spirited  and  at  times  exquisite.  His  rather 
overdone  masculinity  was  due  no  doubt  to  his  own  physical 
disability  and  suffering,  endured  with  exasperated  fortitude. 

1880.    Robert  Bridges  (born  1844) 

Sonnets  xvi.,  XK.,  XXK.,  xxxv.,  from  The  Growth 

of  Love    .         .         .         .                  .         .  989 

London  Snow         .         .         .         .         .         .  991 

On  a  Dead  Child 992 

Awake,  my  Heart    ......  993 

Nightingales            ......  994 

My  Delight  and  thy  Delight     ....  994 

Elegy  :  The  Summer-House  on  the  Mound         .  995 

The  Fair  Brass        ......  998 

Open  for  me  the  Gates  of  Delight      .         .         .  1000 

Trafalgar  Square     ......  1000 


84  JOSEPH  HENRY  SHORTHOUSE        [1880 

Most  of  MR.  BRIDGES'  great  qualities  appear  in  his  sonnet- 
sequence  The  Growth  of  Love  (1876) — his  antique  grace,  his 
modern  subtlety,  and  the  grave  beauty  of  his  thought,  enhanced 
by  its  union  with  a  masculine  joy  and  faith.  But  he  was  almost 
unknown  until  after  the  publication  of  his  famous  Shorter  Poems 
in  three  Books  (1873,  1879,  1880),  to  which  a  fourth  was  added 
in  1890  and  a  fifth  in  1893.  These  were  not  only  of  wide  range 
and  full  of  curious  felicities,  but  the  originality  of  both  their 
subjects  and  rhythms  brought  a  new  freedom  into  English  poetry. 
Mr.  Bridges,  who  is  the  most  learned  and  acute  prosodist  we  have 
yet  had,  and  an  accomplished  student  of  music,  has  a  sense  of 
rhythm  and  a  love  of  metrical  experiment  which  have  at  times 
taken  him  a  little  in  advance  of  the  more  old-fashioned  of  his 
audience:  but  he  has  received  the  fitting  recognition  of  his 
genius  in  his  appointment  to  the  Poet  Laureateship  and  in 
the  unanimous  acclaim  of  his  younger  contemporaries  in  the 
Commonwealth  of  Poetry. 


1880.   Joseph  Henry  Shorthouse  (1834-1901) 

PAGE 

Vengeance  is  Mine  (John  Inglesant)    .         .         .   1001 

SHORTHOUSE  gave  to  the  world  in  1880  the  book  which  (by 
no  desire  of  his  own)  had  been  laid  by  for  many  years  in  a 
privately  printed  edition.  When  at  last  it  appeared,  John  Inglesant 
brought  to  its  author  perhaps  the  most  unhoped-for  tribute  of 
praise  ever  won  by  a  work  of  fiction  in  modern  England.  The 
book  is  called  by  Shorthouse  himself  "  a  Philosophical  Romance," 
and  he  adds  that  the  threads  of  it  are  "  the  conflict  between 
Culture  and  Fanaticism — the  analysis  and  character  of  Sin — 
the  subjective  influence  of  the  Christian  Mythos  (Eternal  Truth 
manifested  in  Phenomena)."  To  the  reader  it  is  a  powerful 
vindication  of  the  position  of  the  historic  Church  of  England, 
cast  into  the  form  of  a  dramatic  story,  the  two  acts  of  which 
are  laid,  one  in  the  England  of  the  Civil  War,  the  other  in  the 
Italy  of  the  post-Renaissance  period.  The  writer  owns  an 
obligation  to  Hawthorne's  "  art  carried  to  perfection,"  but  he 
has  fully  equalled  his  model  in  the  mature  and  melancholy 
beauty'  of  his  style,  and  has  even  surpassed  him,  to  the  mind  of 
most  Englishmen,  in  the  interest  of  his  thesis  and  the  profound 
sincerity  of  his  eloquence. 


1897]  MARY   COLERIDGE  85 

1897.    Mary  Coleridge  (1861-1907) 

PAGE 

To  Memory  .......  1005 

Unity    ........  1005 

Night  is  Fallen  Within,  Without  .  .  .  1006 
Egypt's  Might  is  Tumbled  Down  .  .  .  1006 
Ah,  I  have  Striven,  I  have  Striven  .  .  .  1007 
We  were  not  made  for  Refuges  of  Lies  .  .  1007 
O  the  High  Valley,  the  Little  Low  Hill  (Chilling- 
ham)  .......  1007 

MARY  COLERIDGE,  great-niece  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,  made  her 
reputation  in  1897  by  her  first  historical  romance  The  King 
with  Two  Faces.  Her  poems  appeared  in  small  volumes  without 
her  name,  in  1896-7-8,  and  in  periodicals  from  1900  to  1907: 
a  collection  from  these  and  from  her  MSS.  was  published  (in 
1907)  after  her  death.  Her  work  was  immediately  successful 
both  with  the  general  public  and  with  the  best  living  imaginative 
writers.  Their  critical  studies  of  her  poems  noted  her  affinity 
with  Coleridge,  Blake,  Heine  and  Christina  Rossetti,  but  her 
not  less  striking  originality,  her  wide  range  and  intimate  sincerity. 
"  They  will  be  her  portrait,  an  absolutely  truthful  picture  of  a 
wondrously  beautiful  and  gifted  spirit,  whom  thought  could 
not  make  melancholy  nor  sorrow  sad;  not  in  conventional 
attitude,  nor  with  fixed  features,  nor  lightly  to  be  interpreted,  nor 
even  always  to  be  understood,  but  mystical  rather  and  enigmatical; 
a  poetic  effigy,  the  only  likeness  of  worth  "  (Robert  Bridges). 


INDEX 


ADDISON,  Joseph,  43 

Alison,  i 

A   Little   Geste   of  Robin   Hood 

and  his  Meynie,  g 
Anonymous,   i,  5,  6,  8,  9,  20, 

22-3 

Arnold,  Matthew,  74 
As  ye  came  from  the  Holy  Land,  20 
Austen,  Jane,  59 

Bacon,  Francis,  20 
Barnefield,  Richard,  21 
Baxter,  Richard,  37 
Beaconsfield,       Earl       of.       See 

Disraeli,  Benjamin 
Beaumont,  Francis,  25 
Beddoes,  Thomas  Lovell,  64 
Bentham,  Jeremy,  52 
Berkeley,   Bishop    George,   45 
Berners,  Lord,  10 
Bible,  Wyclif,  3;    Cpverdale,  n; 

Authorised     Version      (1611), 

24-5 

Binnorie,  22 
Blake,  William,  53-4 
Bolingbroke,  Viscount.     See  St. 

John,  Henry 
Borrow,  George,  70 
Boswell,  James,  54 
Bridges,  Robert,  83-4 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  71 
Bronte,  Emily,  71 
Brooke,    Lord.       See    Greville, 

Fulke 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  32 
Browne,  William,  of  Tavistock, 

26 

Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett,  71 
Browning,  Robert,  73-4 
Bunyan,  John,  40 
Burke,  Edmund,  51 
Burleigh,     Lord.       See     Cecil, 

William 

Burney,  Frances,  52 
Burns,  Robert,  53 
Burton,  Robert,  27 
Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  46 


Butler,  Samuel,  38 
Byron,    George    Gordon,    Lord 
Byron,  61-2 

Campbell,  Thomas,  56 

Campion,  Thomas,  16 

Carew,  Thomas,  31 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  67 

Caxton,  William,  8 

Cecil,    William,    Lord    Burleigh, 

12 

Chapman,  George,  26-7 
Chatterton,  Thomas,  50 
Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  2,  4 
Chesterfield,  Earl  of.     See  Stan- 
hope, Philip  Dormer 
Chester  Plays,  6 
Clare,  John,  60-1 
Clarendon,  Earl  of.     See  Hyde, 
Edward 

Clerk  Sounders,  22 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  72 

Cobbett,  William,  57 

Coleridge,  Mary,  85 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  55 

Collins,  William,  49 

Congreve,  William,  42 

Cory,    William    (Johnson),    75 

Cowley,  Abraham,  33-4 

Cowper,  William,  52 

Crabbe,  George,  58-9 

Crashaw,  Richard,  33 

Cuckoo  Song,  i 

Daniel,  Samuel,  17 

Darley,  George,  65 

Darwin,  Charles,  69 

Davenant,  Sir  William,  31 

Defoe,  Daniel,  46 

Dekker,  Thomas,  24 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  65-6 

Dibdin,  Charles,  54 

Dickens,  Charles,  69 

Disraeli,     Benjamin,     Earl     of 

Beaconsfield,  66 
Dobson,  Austin,  81 


86 


INDEX 


Donne,  John,  23-4 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  14 
Dray  ton,  Michael,  18-9 
Drummond,    William,    of   Haw- 

thornden,  27 
Dryden,  John,  41 
Dunbar,  William,  8-9 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  56-7 
"Eliot,  George,"  78 
Elliot,  Ebenezer,  60 
Elyot,  Sir  Thomas,  10 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  68 
Evelyn,  John,  41 

Fielding,  Henry,  48 
FitzGerald,  Edward,  75-6 
Fletcher,  Giles,  24 
Fletcher,  John,  25-6 
Fletcher,  Phineas,  29 
Ford,  John,  30 
Foxe,  John,  12 

Froude,  James  Anthony,  78-9 
Fuller,  Thomas,  37 

Gay,  John,  44-5 

Gibbon,  Edward,  51 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  50 

Gosse,  Edmund,  81 

Gossip  Mine,  9 

Gower,  John,  4-5 

Gray,  Thomas,  48-9 

Greene,  Robert,  14 

Greville,  Fulke,  Lord  Brooke,  30 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  19 

Halifax,      Marquess      of.        See 

Savile,  George 
Hardy,  Thomas,  80- 1 
Hawes,  Stephen,  10 
Hawthorne,   Nathaniel,   75 
Hazlitt,  William,  64 
Helen  of  Kirconnell,  22 
Henley,    William    Ernest,    83 
Henryson,  Robert,  7 
Herbert,  George,  30 
Herrick,  Robert,  34-5 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  36 
Holinshed,  Raphael,  13 
Hood,  Thomas,  65 
Hooker,  Richard,  18 
Howard,  Henry,  Earl  of  Surrey, 

1 1-2 


Hume,  David,  47-8 
Hunt,  Leigh,  60 
Huxley,  Thomas  Henry,  76-7 
Hyde,  Edward,  Earl  of  Claren- 
don, 35-6 

Icarus,  20 

James,  Henry,  82 
James  I.  of  Scotland,  6-7 
Jeffrey,  Francis,  66 
Johnson,  Samuel,  47 
Jonson,  Ben,  21-2 

Keats,  John,  62 

King,    Henry,    Bishop    of    Chi- 

chester,  38 

Kingsley,  Charles,  67-8 
Knox,  John,  12 

Lamb,  Charles,  58 

Landor,  Walter  Savage,  63 

Lang,  Andrew,  79 

Langland,  William,  2 

Locke,  John,  42 

Lodge,  Thomas,  15 

Longfellow,    Henry    Wadsworth, 

67 

Lovelace,  Sir  Richard,  35 
Lydgate,  John,  5,  6 
Lyly,  John,  13 
Lytton,    Edward    Bulwer,    Lord 

Lytton,  66-7 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington,  65 
MacPherson,  James,  49 
Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  8 
Mandeville,  Sir  John,  6 
Mannyng,  Robert,  of  Brunne,  2 
Marlowe,  Christopher,  17 
Marryat,   Captain   Frederick,   66 
Marvell,  Andrew,  36 
May  in  the  Green-wood,  g 
Meredith,  George,  75 
Meres,  Francis,  19 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  70 
Milton,  John,  29,  32,  40 
Montagu,  Lady  Mary  Wortley,  45 
Moore,  Thomas,  56 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  10 
Morris,  William,  77-8 

Napier,    Major-General    Sir   W. 
F.  P.,  60 


88 


INDEX 


Newman,  Cardinal  John  Henry, 

72-3 
North,  Sir  Thomas,  13 

Orford,  Earl  of.     See  Walpole, 

Horace 
Osborne,  Dorothy,  36-7 

Parker,  Martin,  31 

Paston  (Letters),  7 

Pater,  Walter  Horatio,  81-2 

Patmore,  Coventry,  73 

Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  63-4 

Peele,  George,  14-5 

Pepys,  Samuel,  38-9 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  69 

Pope,  Alexander,  44 

Praed,  Winthrop  Mackworth,  64 

Prior,  Matthew,  45 

Purchas,  Samuel,  26 

Quarles,  Francis,  28 
Quia  Amore  Langueo,  9 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  17 
Reade,  Charles,  76 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  50 
Richardson,  Samuel,  47 
Richard  the  Redeless,  5 
Rochester,  Earl  of.    See  Wilmot, 

John 

Rossetti,  Christina,  76 
Rossetti,  Dante  Gabriel,  79 
Ruskin,  John,  70 

St.  John,  Henry,  Viscount  Boling- 

broke,  46 
Savile,     George,     Marquess     of 

Halifax,  41 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  57-8 
Sedley,  Sir  Charles,  39 
Shakespeare,  William,  18,  20-1 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  62-3 
Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  51 
Shirley,  James,  33 
Shorthouse,    Joseph    Henry,    84 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  16 
Sir  Patrick  Spens,  22 
Skelton,  John,  8 
Smart,  Christopher,  50 
Smollett,  Tobias,  48 
Southey,  Robert,  59 


Spenser,  Edmund,  15 
Stanhope,    Philip    Dormer,    Earl 

of  Chesterfield,  51 
Steele,  Sir  Richard,  42-3 
Sterne,  Laurence,  49 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  82-3 
Suckling,  Sir  John,  31 
Surrey,  Earl  of.      See  Howard, 

Henry 

Swift,  Jonathan,  43 
Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  77 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  37 

Tears,  20 

Temple,  Sir  William,  36-7 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord  Tenny- 
son, 68 

Tennyson,  Frederick,  73 

Thackeray,  William  Makepeace, 
72 

The  Dowie  Houms  of  Yarrow,  22 

The  New  Jerusalem,  20 

The  Nut-Brown  Maid,  g 

The  Pilgrims'  Sea  Voyage,  8 

The  Twa  Corbies,  22 

The  Wife  of  Usher's  Well,  22 

There  is  a  Lady  Sweet  and  Kind,  20 

This  World's  Joy,  i 

Thomas  the  Rhymer,  22 

Thomson,  James,  46 

Traherne,  Thomas,  39-40 

Trollope,  Anthony,  74 

Vaughan,  Henry,  35 

Waller,  Edmund,  33 

Walpole,  Horace,  Earl  of  Orford, 

48 

Walton,  Izaak,  39 
Waly,  Waly,  22 
Watts,  Isaac,  42 
Webster,  John,  28 
White,  Gilbert,  54 
Whitman,  Walt,  70 
Wilmot,  John,  Earl  of  Rochester, 

?8 

Wither,  George,  26 
Wolfe,  Charles,  59 
Wordsworth,  William,  54-5 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  28 
Wyatt,  Sir  Thomas,  n 
Wyclif,  John,  3 


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